So far I've received over 350 votes in the 2011 storySouth Million Writers Award. As people may have noticed, this year I'm not releasing a continually updated vote tally. The problem with doing these continuous tallies is they automatically include anyone who manipulates the system, such as by voting multiple times. This can give a misleading idea of who is actually ahead in the voting.
This year the vote tallies will be released weekly, which enables me to easily screen and remove duplicate or manipulative votes. Not surprisingly, quite a few people tried do this. And equally as unsurprising, I caught them in the act and deleted those votes. I mean, if you enter a fake email address then hey, no vote for you!
Anyway, here are the current vote percentages, ranked from highest to lowest.
- "The Green Book" by Amal El-Mohtar (Apex Magazine) – 17%
- "Most of Them Would Follow Wandering Fires" by Amber Sparks (Barrelhouse) – 17%
- "Do You Have a Place for Me" by Roxane Gay (Spork Press) – 14%
- "Arvies" by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine) – 12%
- "The Incorrupt Body of Carlo Busso" by Eric Maroney (Eclectica) – 11%
- "Cancer Party" by Nicola Mason (Blackbird) – 10%
- "Hell Dogs" by Daphne Buter (FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry) – 7%
- "Arthur Arellano" by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Narrative Magazine) – 6%
- "Here is David, the Greatest of Descendants" by Spencer Kealamakia (Anderbo) – 5%
- "Elegy for a Young Elk" by Hannu Rajaniemi (Subterranean Magazine) – 1%
As everyone can see, two stories are essentially tied for first place while the other stories are not far behind.
Remember, the public vote is open through July 6, 2011. Readers and writers may vote one time for their favorite by clicking here.
The prizes for this year's award are:
- First place: $600 plus the $100 gift certificate from ThinkGeek
- Runner-up: $200
- Honorable mention/third place: $100