A flash response to a flash fiction rant

There are so many predictable aspects to life. The sun will rise. Taxes will come due. James Cameron will gross another billion dollars with a film.

To such predictability I add the yearly email rants I receive about the Million Writers Award excluding flash fiction.

This time, though, I received a rant before the award cycle even begins. In response to my call for more preliminary judges, said ranter emailed that she wouldn't consider volunteering for an award which so blatantly "discriminates" against flash fiction.

I offer no apologies for the award excluding flash fiction. From the start, the award has focused on longer length stories, which our rules define as 1000 words or longer. My rationalization was thus: Since the ephemeral world of online publishing naturally provides a more supportive environment for flash fiction, I wanted this award to support longer stories. I've often said I'd support anyone who wanted to run a flash fiction contest along the lines of the Million Writers Award. But the Million Writers Award will not throw flash fiction and longer short stories into the same award-consideration pot.

At the risk of receiving more rants, I also point people to Jeff Crook's take on the Mississippi Review's new flash fiction issue. Jeff wasn't impressed with their new issue and quotes an essay I wrote almost six years ago, in which I stated "...there is no evidence that short shorts are being read by anyone outside the 'literary' community."

That made me wonder if what I wrote six years ago is still correct. While I continue to enjoy the better examples of flash fiction (including "Mr Cat" by Paul Lisicki, which Jeff rightly names as the highlight of the MR issue), I still don't see any evidence that many people outside the literary community read flash fiction. At least, not when compared with the millions of readers around the world who devour short stories and novel length fiction.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and am overlooking some sea change in flash fiction readership over recent years. If so, please let me know.

The Million Writers Award needs genre judges

I'm now laying the groundwork for the 2010 storySouth Million Writers Award for best online short story, which will kick off in late January.  The good news is I have over a dozen preliminary judges lined up to help screen the nominations and select the list of notable stories of the year.  The bad news: I have very few judges familiar with genre writings.

So if you are an experienced writer, reader, or editor in the fields of horror, SF, fantasy, romance, or crime fiction, please apply by e-mailing me at lapthai (circle a sign) yahoo (dot) com.  Be sure to tell me why you'd make a good preliminary judge (i.e., mention your writing, reading and/or editing experience).

Call for Million Writers Award preliminary judges

The 2010 storySouth Million Writers Award for best online short story will kick off in late January, so I'm putting out the call for preliminary judge applicants. These judges help screen the nominations and select the list of notable stories of the year. As always, I hope to select a group of judges from across the literary genres.

To apply, e-mail me your writing, reading and/or editing experience at lapthai (circle a sign) yahoo (dot) com--be sure to tell me why you'd make a good preliminary judge.

And to tie in with this, Robert Laughlin emailed me an interesting fact about the Million Writers Award. For the last three years, the list of Notable Stories has cited those stories chosen by more than one preliminary judge. According to Robert, 37 stories have been so cited, with no author having written more than one of these stories. However, the following online magazines have published multiple stories chosen by more than one preliminary judge:

Circulation of Online Genre Magazines

A month ago, I posted Online Genre Magazines: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. At the time, I stated "Based on my experience with online magazines, a top publication like Strange Horizons likely has between 1,000 to 2,000 unique visitors per day. Most other top markets will have 400 to 1000 visitors a day, and obscure markets will have 10 to 100 visitors a day at most."

However, the one weak point with my estimate was I didn't have current access to the website statistics of many online magazines. In response to my call to examine web stats, I received a large number of emails from editors, and a good number of these gave me access to their statistics. While a few were fine with being named, most wanted to stay anonymous. In honor of this I am not naming either the editors or the magazines who provided me with this information.

It appears that my original estimates appear to be correct, aside from being somewhat optimistic. Here are my revised estimates:

  • Top publications like Strange Horizons likely have between 800 and 1,500 unique visitors per day.
  • Most other top markets will have 300 to 800 visitors a day.
  • The majority of obscure markets will have 10 to 80 visitors a day at most, although a few climb into the lower hundreds per day.

Please note that, as I previously mentioned, places like Tor.com receive far more traffic than this since they focus on being more than a simple online magazine. Basically, the creation of an online community tied in with a genre magazine or publishing company brings many more visitors to a site. But most of these visitors are still not reading the online fiction.

One surprising finding was that the submission guidelines were the most popular pages at almost every magazine whose stats I examined. This means that for the less popular online magazines, the number of visitors who actually read their fiction may be less than the number who visit the site merely to learn how to submit stories.

Finally, not every unique visitor to an online magazine is truly unique. While I was working on this analysis, one print editor contacted me and said many people make the mistake of considering every visitor to an online genre magazine to be a unique visitor who only shows up once a month.

This is absolutely correct. Many visitors to online magazines return multiple times per month, just as a reader of a print magazine like Analog returns to one issue a number of times. So while Strange Horizons may technically have an estimated 30,000 plus visitors per month, many of these visitors return time and again to the site. This means it is unlikely even the biggest online genre magazines have surpassed print genre magazines in readership.

The other surprising finding is that major podcasts like StarShipSofa and Escape Pod have truly astounding levels of listenership, with tens of thousands of downloads per month. This doesn't prove people are listening to an entire show when they download a podcast. But since the act of downloading is a more dedicated act than surfing to a website--and since it would be rare for someone to download the same podcast more than once--I'm inclined to believe many genre podcasts should actually rank among the biggest online genre magazines out there.

I'll leave the comments below open for a bit, so please let me know if you think my analysis is on the mark or not. And if any of the editors I've consulted wish to state their view on all this for the record, feel free to do so.

Online Genre Magazines: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Note: Below is a slightly edited version of the handout from my recent Context presentation. Not sure why it took me so long to upload it. I blame chronic laziness.

For writers, online genre magazines are not only a great way to build readership and name recognition, they also tend to be more accessible than many print magazines, with most accepting electronic submissions, featuring rapid acceptance to publication turn-around times, and a willingness to work with new writers. However, all online magazines are not equal in the exposure they bring to a writer's story.

While several top online magazines rival or surpass Analog and Asimov's in readership and "look," many others have poor design, non-existent editorial work, and a very limited readership. There's also a high mortality rate among online magazines—think SCIFiction, Baen's Universe, Farrago's Wainscot, and the almost countless smaller magazines which came and went without a notice. Duotrope Digest lists several hundred online SF, fantasy, and horror magazines in its database. It is highly unlikely the vast majority of these magazines will bring significant attention to a writer's stories.

So when writers ponder submitting to online magazines, they should consider these important points:

  1. Who are the editors? Because online magazines are so easy to create, you want to make sure that your story is noticed if it is accepted. The surest indicator of this are the editors listed on the masthead. If they're connected and known to the genre you're writing in, there's a good chance their online magazine will be noticed and read, even if it is new.  They are also less likely to publish an issue or two and then disappear.  This doesn't mean new "unknown" editors can't create a great online magazine, or that a known editor won't create a flop. But when someone puts their reputation on the line, they have a vested interest in seeing their magazine succeed. If you've never heard of an online magazine's editors, observe their magazine's track record and see what kind of reception their magazine and stories are receiving.
     
  2. Does the magazine look professional?  Anyone can create a simple website these days, but it takes time and skill to create a professional looking online magazine. If the magazine looks like it was thrown together in a hurry, or created with the latest blog software, that will reflect on how people consider the magazine's fiction. In addition, sites which are overly designed with flash movies and animation can drive people away before they have a chance to read your story, while old programming tricks like frames and massive artwork shoving text to the side makes for poor readability (especially when accessed by new technologies like iPhones). Look for online magazines with a simple but clean look.
     
  3. What is the magazine's readership? It's difficult to determine the readership of online magazines. As in the world of high finance, online magazines often inflate their numbers, if they report them at all. Based on my experience with online magazines, a top publication like Strange Horizons likely has between 1,000 to 2,000 unique visitors per day. Most other top markets will have 400 to 1000 visitors a day, and obscure markets will have 10 to 100 visitors a day at most. If a magazine has included in their site the ability to support an active online community, these numbers could go much higher. But I'd still bet this is an accurate estimate of the people actually reading that magazine's fiction. And while we can all quibble about the readership of online magazines, equally important to writers is who reads the magazines. Do the magazine's stories show up frequently in the "year's best" anthologies? Check out the honorable mentions in Gardner Dozois' Year's Best series to see a good listing of online magazines anthology editors will be reading.

Anyone desiring to explore more of the world of online fiction magazine should check out the storySouth Million Writers Award at www.storysouth.com/millionwriters. To learn more about specific genre magazines, including hundreds not mentioned here, go to Duotrope Digest at www.duotrope.com or Ralan's at www.ralan.com.

Selection of widely read SF/F/H online magazines

  • Aberrant Dreams, www.hd-image.com, SF/F/H, $.03/word to $100 maximum
    Publishes some very good fiction and pays decent rates. But their web design feels like something from the late 1990s. Also occasionally prone to delays with their new issues.
  • Abyss & Apex, www.abyssandapex.com, SF/F, $.05/word
    Publish very good fiction, but crap, improve that site design! With a site redesign, they'd likely be at the top of everyone's online magazine list.
  • Apex Magazine, www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online, SF/F/H, SFWA Prof. Market
    Apex recently updated their design, making the look of the site equal to the great content they publish. They also offer very nice Kindle and PDF editions of their magazine, which is something all online mags should do.
  • Beneath Ceaseless Skies, beneath-ceaseless-skies.com, "literary adventure fantasy," $.05/word
    A wonderful online magazine with great stories and great design. In my opinion, they deserve to be selected as a SFWA Professional Market in the next year or so.
  • ChiZine, chizine.com, dark SF/F/H, SFWA Prof. Market
    Great design—if a little dark, which is definitely intentional—with great fiction.
  • Clarkesword Magazine, www.clarkesworldmagazine.com, SF/F, SFWA Prof.
    A near perfect mix of great fiction and great design. Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee, republishes stories as print chapbooks and anthologies.*
  • Eclectica Magazine, www.eclectica.org, literary, but open to genre fiction
    One of the older online fiction magazines. A simple but clean design which focuses on the great fiction they publish.
  • Electric Velocipede, www.electricvelocipede.com, SF/F, leans toward steampunk. $.01/word, $25 minimum
    Good fiction, poetry and nonfiction, but the site's design could be improved (although it should be noted EV is a print magazine that posts some of its content online). But it won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine, so forget about the design and just read the great content.*
  • Fantasy Magazine, www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy, fantasy (duh!), SFWA Prof. Market
    Great fantasy, nice design.  The editors work really hard to promote the stories they publish and to create their own online community of readers and writers.
  • Grantville Gazette, www.grantvillegazette.com, shared world fanfic, SFWA Prof. Market
    Publishes fanfic tied in with Eric Flint's 1632 universe. Stories are decent fanfic, but site's poor design drives me up the wall with content-scatter overload. Very difficult to navigate, but the upside is stories published here have a shot at publication in the Grantville Gazetter anthology series.
  • Heliotrope Magazine, www.heliotropemag.com, SF/F/H, $.10/word up to 5,000 words
    Very good magazine with a very clean design—once you move past their hyper-annoying banner ad on every page. I wonder if the small ad money they raise with this is worth aggravating so many readers.
  • Ideomancer, www.ideomancer.com, idea-based SF/F/H
    I love the look of Ideomancer, and they have some good stories, but the links to find the stories and poetry are not intuitive. Don't make your readers search for the story they want.
  • Menda City Review, mendacitypress.com
    High quality literary journal which is also open to literary-style genre fiction.
  • OSC's Intergalactic Medicine Show, www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com, SF/F, SFWA Prof.
    Nice design, great stories, all available for a one-issue purchase of only $2.50, a simple price and concept which I love.  They also commission great story artwork.
  • Pedestal Magazine, www.thepedestalmagazine.com, literary fiction, but open to all genres, SFWA Prof.
    This magazine makes me want to scream. Good to great content, but the design is so bad you can barely read it. Who the hell designs sites so they compress your story into a space mere inches wide?
  • Strange Horizons, www.strangehorizons.com, SF/F/H, SFWA Prof. Market
    Founded in 2000, Strange Horizons proved that a non-profit magazine could succeed online. Very supportive of emerging writers. While site design is a bit dated, they aim to fix this in near future. I'd estimate Strange Horizons receives the most traffic of any online genre magazine (at least, until Tor.com came around).
  • Subterranean, www.subterraneanpress.com/magazine, SF/F/H, SFWA Prof. Market
    Great art and fiction plus a nice design, although the stories can be difficult to read at times due the small width of their display.  Very receptive to longer stories like novellas (which is unusual among online magazines).
  • Tor.com, www.tor.com, SF/F/H, SFWA Prof. (paying 25 cents/word to 5000 words, 15 cents next 5000, 10 after)
    The new standard by which all online magazines are judged. Also the highest paying online market. The only problem: They aren't open to submissions unless the editor invites you to submit.

* I've updated the post to reflect the fact that Clarkesworld is a Hugo and WFA nominee, not winner, and that Electric Velocipede is a print magazine that posts content online.

Million Writers Award winners

The public vote for this year's Million Writers Award has ended and the winners are:

  1. First place (winner of $500): "The Fisherman's Wife" by Jenny Williams (LitNImage)
  2. Runner-up (winner of $200): "Fuckbuddy" by Roderic Crooks (Eyeshot)
  3. Honorable mention (winner of $100): "No Bullets in the House" by Geronimo Madrid (Drunken Boat)

Congratulations to all the winners--I'll contact them shortly on how to receive their prize money. Also, thanks to everyone who took part in this year's award, especially the donors, without whom there would have been no prize money.

I'd also like to draw attention to Erica Naone and her wonderful blog. During the course of the MWA public vote, Erica reviewed the top ten stories on her blog. So if you haven't read the finalists, pop over there to see what Erica thought of them.

Final day of voting, and a warning

With less that 24 hours before voting ends for this year's Million Writers Award, a few people are attempting to stuff the ballot box for different stories. I have removed these votes, and, to discourage more attempts, have restricted the viewing of the results. I'll let everyone see the results again once voting closes at 11:59 p.m. tonight. I also reserve the right to disqualify any of the stories if the ballot stuffing attempts continue.

Only 3 days left to vote in Million Writers Award

Only three more days before voting ends for this year's Million Writers Award. While the votes are still close, it now appears to be a three way race between the following stories:

In addition, "Interview With A Moron" by Elizabeth Stuckey-French (Narrative Magazine) is close behind at 13%.  Remember, voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on June 17, so go read the stories and cast your vote--but only one vote, because duplicate votes will be removed! Note the intimidating bold font used in that last statement. I have already removed a number of votes over the last two days due to a few people voting multiple times.

Thanks to the generosity of numerous donors, this year's award features the following monetary prizes:

  • Overall winner: $500
  • Runner-up: $200
  • Honorable mention (third place): $100

Million Writers Award voting update

With a week and a half until voting ends for this year's Million Writers Award, we have a four way horse-race. The leading stories are:

In my six years of running this award, I have never seen such a narrow margin among the leading contenders. Remember, voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on June 17, so go read the stories and cast your vote--but only one vote, because duplicate votes will be removed!

Thanks to the generosity of numerous donors, this year's award features the following monetary prizes:

  • Overall winner: $500
  • Runner-up: $200
  • Honorable mention (third place): $100

Read Peter S. Beagle's IGMS story for free during the Million Writers Award

I always remain neutral on the finalists for the storySouth Million Writers Award, allowing the public to vote for their favorite stories. My view is that all ten finalists are great stories. If they weren't great, I wouldn't have picked them!

However, I want to draw attention to "The Tale of Junko and Sayuri" by Peter S. Beagle, from OSC's Intergalactic Medicine Show. Normally IGMS is a pay site, where a very reasonable fee--only $2.50 per issue--allows access to their wonderful stories. However, during the public vote for the Million Writers Award, IGMS editor Edmund Schubert is allowing free access to Beagle's story. So I encourage everyone to surf over there and check it out. If you like what you see, consider purchasing an issue or two to read. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Do you think I'm stupid? (A Million Writers Award voting rant)

There's been a lot of activity during the first two days of voting for the 2009 storySouth Million Writers Award. So far over 300 people have voted for their favorite story. To vote or to see the totals, go here.

Now for my rant. Obviously someone out there thinks I'm stupid because they made a ham-fisted attempt to stuff the ballot box today. As I've said repeatedly, I closely monitor the voting and can easily see repeat voting. Even if someone uses--SHOCK!--proxy servers! When this happens, I remove the illegal votes, which is what I did a few minutes ago to this bone-headed idiot's votes. Please note that if this happens too much said story might be removed from the competition. So keep it honest, people!

Million Writers Award finalists (and some other great stories)

A hard deal--that's what it was, trying to select the top ten online stories for the 2009 Million Writers Award. I guess we've reached the point where so many great stories are being published online each year that it's difficult to select only ten great stories.

As always, my choices were limited to the 2009 Million Writers Award notable stories, selected by our preliminary judges. So if a story wasn't on that list, I didn't consider it.

Without further delay, my selections for the top ten online stories are:

Please go over to the storySouth Million Writers Award page to vote for your favorite story. Thanks to the support of our donors, the top three winners of the public vote will receive, respectively, $500, $200, and $100. The public vote will run from today through June 17, 2009.

I'd also like to single the following stories out for praise. They all made my short list for the top ten:

3AM Magazine
http://www.3ammagazine.com

Abyss & Apex
http://www.abyssandapex.com

Anderbo
http://www.anderbo.com/

Arch Literary Journal
http://archjournal.wustl.edu/

Baen's Universe
http://www.baens-universe.com/

Beneath Ceaseless Skies
http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com

Carve Magazine
http://www.carvezine.com

Cha: An Asian Literary Journal
http://www.asiancha.com/

Clarkesword Magazine
http://www.clarkesworldmagazine.com/

Eclectica Magazine
http://www.eclectica.org

Elimae
http://www.elimae.com/

Farrago's Wainscot
http://www.farragoswainscot.com

JMWW
http://jmww.150m.com

The King's English
http://www.thekingsenglish.org

Our Stories
http://www.ourstories.us

Pindeldyboz
http://www.pindeldyboz.com

Plots with Guns
http://www.plotswithguns.com

Serendipity Magazine
http://www.magicalrealism.co.uk

Smokelong Quarterly
http://www.smokelong.com

Storyglossia
http://www.storyglossia.com

Strange Horizons
http://www.strangehorizons.com

Tor.com
http://www.tor.com

Word Riot
http://wordriot.org

I'm behind on my Million Writers Award reading--blame Laird Barron

I know, I know--everyone wants to know what's up with the Million Writers Award. The short answer is I'm still working my way through the notable stories, and hope to have my selections made by the middle of the month.

One thing I've noticed during my MWA reading is that very few horror stories made this year's notable list. This is my fault because I failed to select a preliminary judge who specialized in horror literature. Before people jump on me, I will fix this before next year's award.

By an amazing coincidence, an advance copy of the paperback edition of Laird Barron's The Imago Sequence and Other Stories arrived in the mail this week. At first I avoided the book because 1) I have way too much MWA reading to do, and 2) I'm really, really picky about my horror. But then I started reading Barron's stories and couldn't stop. Anyone interested in some really creepy but well written stories should check out this collection. You can learn more about Laird Barron here. And if anyone asks why I'm behind on this year's MWA reading, I'm blaming Laird Barron!

The Million Writers Award and Narrative Magazine

An earful has been shoved into my brain over the last 24 hours with regards to Narrative Magazine being named the Million Writers Award's best online magazine for 2008. The first person to contact me was Alexis Enrico Santí, the editor in chief of Our Stories and one of the preliminary judges for this year's Million Writers Award. Alexis specifically asked why Narrative was in the running for the award considering that they are essentially the New Yorker of online literary journals and have what he called "a dubious readingfee" for their story of the week submissions (which I specifically praised in announcing Narrative's award).

Others echoed Alexis' comments. The editor of another online journal (who, very understandably, wished to remain anonymous), said:

"It's a dicey game.  On one hand, hats off to Narrative for putting out such a professional looking publication (and paying their writers).  On the other hand, it's kinda a shame/shell game they're running in terms of their submission policy.  I bet when push comes to shove, many of those 8 nominated stories didn't come through the open sub line (nor did their authors pay that fee).  And using the cache of Million Writers Award will now get them more would-be-submitters (I would think)."

First off, let me respond to the overall issue of Narrative Magazine being a part of the Million Writers Award.  The award clearly states that it is for online publications, which means Narrative most definitely qualifies. They have also been a part of this award since our second year, when Alicia Gifford's story "Toggling the Switch" (published in Narrative) won the overall award. With regards to the award for best online magazine, per the rules it is given to the online magazine with the most notable stories, as selected by the preliminary judges. Once I compiled all the preliminary judges' selections, Narrative came out on top. Simple as that.

But based on the feedback I've been receiving, there are other concerns being raised here. I suspect some of this results from Narrative becoming the first online literary journal to equal the best print journals in power and prestige. I see this as nothing but a good thing. When I started the Million Writers Award, online journals weren't considered the equals of the worst print publications, let alone the best. It's good to have one of us on top, so to speak.

The other major concern appears to center on the reading fees Narrative charges people submitting for their story of the week feature. Reading fees have long been controversial. Speaking for myself, I don't pay reading fees and refuse to submit my stories to places that charge them. BUT--and this is a huge ass but--I also support the magazines I submit my stories to. I mainly write speculative fiction these days, and have been published in the last year in Interzone and Analog; I also submit on a regular basis to Asimov's Science Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and other places. I'm also a reader of all these magazines, either by subscribing to them or buying individual issues.

My point is that it's tough to publish short fiction in today's world, especially if you pay your authors. While I disagree with reading fees, I also know that if more authors subscribed to their favorite magazines, or donated money to them, reading fees wouldn't be necessary.

As for concerns about what Narrative uses the reading fees for, I have no comment on this because I don't know very much about the situation. Instead, I point people to a post from Alexis, where he offers several suggestions for Narrative Magazine. Some of them sound reasonable, but I'll leave it to others to debate whether or not these are good suggestions.

Please don't take this post as me dismissing the points raised by Alexis and the other editors who contacted me, all of whom I like and respect. To my mind, what this episode shows is that online literary publications are evolving. After this Million Writers Award cycle is finished, I plan to have a conversation with editors, writers, and readers about where the award should go from here. Should we continue as before, focusing on all stories published by any online publications? Or should some magazines and journals be placed on a different level, even though they publish online?

But that's a conversation for another day. Right now, the Million Writers Award is on and focused on bringing needed attention to a large group of deserving authors. Thanks to everyone for their comments and for taking part in the award.

What happened to the Nick Mamatas story?

The first screw-up of this year's Million Writers Award is now behind us. Turns out "Summon, Bind, Banish" by Nick Mamatas, which was selected as a notable story, was only reprinted last year in Apex Magazine. The story was originally published in the anthology Bandersnatch, edited by Paul Tremblay and Sean Wallace and published by Prime Books in 2007.

This is entirely our mistake; Apex had clearly labeled the story as a reprint and both myself and the judge who selected the story missed this. In order to avoid any controversy--"Hey, that story ain't eligible so what's it doing competing against legit stories?"--Nick Mamatas asked me to remove it from the list of notable stories. Thanks to Nick for being so cool about this screw up.

Kyle Minor: The 'Tom Hanks' of this year's Million Writers Award

Kyle Minor has emerged as the 'Tom Hanks'* of this year's Million Writers Award, garnering four notable stories spread across three magazines--Freight Stories,Pindeldyboz, and Plots with Guns. In addition to these online publications, Kyle's stories have appeared in The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Best American Mystery Stories 2008, while his short story collection In the Devil's Territory was recently published to critical acclaim.

I had the opportunity to meet Kyle a few years back and can state that in addition to being a great writer, he's also a great guy. As I compiled the preliminary judges' story selections, it was a pleasant surprise to see different judges select four of Kyle's stories. I encourage people to check out his work, along with all the other notable stories.

*In case anyone doesn't understand this reference, back in the 1990s Hanks won back-to-back Oscars for Best Actor and seemed to pop up on the award ballots year after year.

Million Writers Award notable stories of 2008

The list of Million Writers Award notable stories of 2008 is now available. Many thanks to the editors and readers who nominated a story--and a big thanks to the preliminary judges who screened the nominations and/or nominated their own lists of favorite stories.

I will be reading all of the notable stories over the coming weeks, and will release my selection for the top ten stories on May 15th. That is also when the public vote for the overall winner will begin. For more information, please see the award home page. And don't forget that thanks to the generosity of numerous donors, this year's award features the following monetary prizes:

  • Overall winner: $500
  • Runner-up: $200
  • Honorable mention (third place): $100

Million Writers Award update

The storySouth Million Writers Award closed to reader and editor nominations at the end of the day on March 31. Editors from 69 online magazines and journals nominated up to three stories each from their publications; in addition, readers and writers nominated around 270 stories.

The nominated stories:

  • Reader nominations are here.
  • Editor nominations are here.

The preliminary judges are now going through the nominated stories and sending their selections to me. I should have the list of notable stories up by April 15. The top ten selections will be up around May 1st, at which time the voting for the top story begins. For more information on the award, please see my previous introduction and the award rules. Thanks to the generosity of many donors, this year's award offers the following prize money:

  • $500 for the overall winner,
  • $200 for the runner-up,
  • $100 for honorable mention/third place.