Stories must include an incident of defenestrationism — “the art, or -ism, of throwing people out windows.” This need not be literal.
Our team defines such an incident as follows: “a sudden, immediate, even violent shift, change, or seismical event between the beginning and the end.”
Finalists are selected by owner, co-editor Paul-Newell Reaves
and co-editor Tara Campbell. These finalists are then published weekly, before winners are announced, followed by at least two weeks of Fan Voting.
Winners are selected by our panel of four judges, with Fan Voting counting as an additional judge vote.
(Due to the rather unusual global circumstances, please be understanding should our judging panel change suddenly.)
Expect harsh words of criticism if guidelines are not followed. Otherwise, we’re all lovey-dovey.
Prize
Winner: $75
Two runners-up: $30
Guidelines:
- Grammar is no list of rules, no series of hoops. Punctuation is an art form, remember that, punctuate like there’s no tomorrow.
- Edit, comrades, edit till there is no editing left to be done. We ask you go through at least TEN read-through edits before submitting.
- Incomplete sentences must serve an obvious purpose: toward narrative or character development, dialogue, theme or style.
- Please, please, no Zombie fiction. We do not encourage work whose central theme is the braindead. All other Sci-Fi, Fantasy and stories of Dis-reality —provided it is imaginative and different — will be considered.
- There is violence in nature; there is violence in man. But not all violence succeeds in changing the world. Violence, for our contest, should throw someone or things out the window!
View our Editing Tips
Further options for excellence:
- Think about usage of color as a theme to develop across the story, a la the grand lady of English Modernism, Virginia Woolf.
- You could try for a completely non-violent, perhaps emotional, perhaps epiphanic, defenestrationism story
MUST:
- Email subject: !Short Story Contest! [email protected]
Please include a phone number, in case our emails end up in your spam. PDFs not preferred — difficult to transcribe to the site.
Feel free to complement us on our concrete and exact guidelines. Most of the worst writing we’ve had the displeasure of reading comes from editors trying to explain and individualize their tastes for a publication.
We adhere closely to the CLMP Contest Code of Ethics.
Please do not submit if you have or have had any affiliation with any of the four Judges.
We require only Electronic Rights, including Electronic Archival Rights. Author maintains all Future Rights.
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