Our Readers Get Their Say

by Don Webb

In the past week a few contributors have written to tell me about storySouth’s annual “Million Writers Award.” Why it’s called that, I don’t know; however, the contest seems to be well-intentioned, especially with its offer of a cash prize. I appreciate the communications and agree that our contributors and Bewildering Stories have nothing to lose by entering the contest.

The most convincing part, I find, is that readers can participate.

Here’s my summary of the rules. Please see the storySouth website for the official version.

Nominations:

Anyone may nominate one story.
Writers may nominate one of their own stories.
Editors may nominate three stories from their own publication.

Time window: the story must have appeared in 2007 (in Bewildering Stories: issues 227 through 272).
The story must have been published in a refereed on-line journal; that is, no self-publishing. (Bewildering Stories definitely qualifies.)
Prose fiction only will be considered. (My interpretation: no poetry, including prose poetry.)
The minimum length is 1,000 words. (No flash fiction. I didn’t see any maximum length specified.)
Nominations are open March 1 to 31, 2008.

Here’s the link to the reader nomination page.

You’ll want to bookmark it and come back to it. You can’t just nominate something on the fly: the format for submitting nominations is simple but rather strict; mess it up and, I suspect, your nomination will be disregarded.

You’ll have to supply the URL of the story you nominate, and the URL had better be correct — or else. I almost always copy-paste URL’s; writing them in by hand is an FFD (formula for disaster).

Now, how on earth can Jerry or I nominate the three “best” examples of prose fiction in Bewildering Stories from forty-five issues? Just take a look at our Quarterly Reviews: it’s easy to start; where do we stop? I, for one, would not want to have to explain my choices to the authors of equally deserving works that I did not select.

But wait... where do Jerry and I come into this, anyway? The three selections have already been made. I just have to crunch some numbers and see what the Review Board voted as the top three prose fiction titles in 2007. I expect the selections will be microscopically close, but the process will be as fair as I know how to make it; no awkward explanations required.

Stay tuned to this Department. In a future issue I’ll roll out the red carpet and pin the virtual medals on Bewildering Stories’ three candidates.

Meanwhile, gentle readers, you don’t have to wait. Please nominate your own favorites — one each. And, gentle contributors, please nominate your favorite from among your own submissions. We hope they’ll all come from Bewildering Stories — from issues 227 through 272, of course. Please consult carefully the list of nominations posted at storySouth; duplicate nominations are severely frowned upon.

As a concluding note, I’ve remarked with a half-smile that the contest implies fortune and fame for the winners and fame for our e-zine. And yet Bewildering Stories seems to have a much larger editorial staff than storySouth. Heaven knows we need it.

I’m not really surprised: Bewildering Stories has to be one of the largest literary websites on the Net. And if a colleague website can give us publicity in return for all we’ve provided here, so much the better.

Don Webb
Managing Editor
Bewildering Stories