The storySouth Million Writers Award is now open. This is the 10th annual edition of the award, which is for any fictional short story of at least a 1,000 words first published in an online publication during 2012. By "publication," we mean an online magazine or journal with an editorial process (so self-published stories are not eligible).
- For the rules, go here.
- Editors of online magazine can submit their nominations here.
- Readers can submit their nominations here.
The deadline for nominations is August 3rd.
As many people have noticed—and commented upon, oh my how people have commented—this year's Million Writers Award is starting rather late. In addition, the more sharp-eyed among our fans may notice that the award website and nomination process has a new design and feel.
Well, there's a reason for this, which comes down to me. After nine years of running the Million Writers, I no longer have the time to devote to this annual project. Between family and work and my own fiction writing, the MWA has been suffering because I rarely have the time to focus on it.
Which leads to the following annoucement:
Spring Garden Press takes over Million Writers Award
Yes, Spring Garden Press, the publisher of the online literary magazine storySouth, has now taken over running the award. The award process will not change but the great people at Spring Garden Press—including Terry L. Kennedy, Associate Director of the UNCG MFA Writing Program and editor of storySouth, and Shawn Delgado, Million Writers Award editor—will be able to give much more attention to the award than I can. This also allows the award to expand and live beyond the work of a single person, so many thanks to Terry, Shawn, and Spring Garden Press for doing this.
Donations Needed for Prize Money!
But even though we have a new crew running the MWA, we still need donations to fund the award's prize money. Last year we had nearly $1000 in prize money for the winners; all of this prize money was raised through donations from writers, editors and readers. I hope we can reach these amounts again.
To donate, go to the main Million Writers Award website.
Thanks to everyone who has taken part in the award in previous years, and I hope you enjoy it again on our 10th anniversary. I will be posting updates on this blog throughout the award process. For more frequent updates, be sure to check out my Twitter account.