Anthrofiction Writing Contest, Spring 2006
Greetings!
It's a long story, but I shall make it short. I have "inherited" an anthrofiction writing contest. The original contest manager was forced to drop out between the time he announced the contest theme for the spring 2006 season and the deadline for story entry.
I apologize for not posting earlier, but I was swamped. It has been a huge amount of work for me to create a new website just for the contest and create semi-automated entry and judging scripts for the site.
I call the contest the Anthrofiction Network's Short Story Contest. The purpose of the site is to help authors of anthrofiction become more skilled storytellers and writers, promote anthrofiction, and have fun.
The entry period for spring 2006 is closed and the judging period is upon us. We have four entries plus the sample story written by the original contest manager, who was gracious enough to let me include his story as a sample. So stop by the site, read a few stories, and score them. 50% of the score comes from the public (you) and 50% comes from a panel of experts. I want your feed back, but more importantly the authors need your feedback.
The judging period closes at midnight, June 20th, GMT. This is only 8 days from now.
The announcement of the winner will be on June 21st and the summer season should kick off June 21st or June 22nd.
Thank you.
Scotty
Yippee!
Yippee!
The website is patched up pretty well and shows the results for the spring contest and the invitation to the summer contest—which is now! And I didn’t have to restructure things, which is cool. So go check out the summer contest and see what the new theme is.
I’ve got a bunch-o-stuff do do for the website. Create real content for some “under construction” pages, fix a few things, and finish the sample story for the summer contest (I should have posted it from day-one). Well, I’m hoping to get the story posted Monday, since I’ll have all weekend to write.
As far as the rest of the list I don’t want to spend too much time on it. The big push is to get a live database going then have the pages talk with it (which I’ve never done before), and to create a system that has user accounts, tracking cookies, and other good things. The motivation is that by requiring a login to view the stories, I’m not publishing them to the Web. It would be awesome to help authors grow to publication quality, but a shame if they withheld stories because they decided they wanted to try to go pro. Few professional publishers will want a story that someone else has already published.
Early in July I’ll jump over to a test site for the database/cookie project and hope to have something that is at least functional by the end of July. The entry deadline is the end of the day on August 10th.
Well, this has been fun and interesting. A sort of a shakedown cruse. Not too much was broken and I’m thrilled with the stories and the votes.
I hope to see more authors and stories for the summer season. And I hope to generate more interest in anthrofiction and the contest, especially among the “general public”. Authors, you can help. When you have an entry, tell your friends, tell your relatives, tell your mother even. Anthrofiction is cool and it deserves to go mainstream. Your mother will be proud.
You can help me promote the site by linking to it from elsewhere. I’m also very open to link exchanges with complementary sites. The sole purpose of Anthrofiction Network is to nurture and grow fantastic authors who like to write anthrofiction. So any site that is writer oriented or reader oriented, any site that is about publishing (with the exception of vanity presses, vanity agents, or other scams), and any site that is about anthropomorphic anything (as long as it is “family friendly”) is a great candidate for a link exchange. I’m sure there are categories I’m forgetting.
Thanks again for an awesome spring contest season and I hope to see you all again.
Scotty
Preliminary Contest
Preliminary Contest Results
The complete results will appear on the website as soon as I can get the pages up.
Overall Score: 3.61
The Dance
by Dr. Kayngi
Overall Score: 3.59
Preacher Bennie Bunny
by Oscar Rat
Overall Score: 3.35
The Stinkfields and the McChips Feud
by Oscar Rat
Overall Score: 3.19
The Flight of the Silver Phoenix
by No Idea
When will the pages be up? In a few hours. It will probably take me daze to be able to auto-generate complete pages from the raw data. Meanwhile I will fudge it and hand generate the contest results to meld them with the existing bits of auto-generated story pages.
I should announce the summer contest season and summer theme within 24 hours. The close of the summer entry period will be on August 10th rather than July 31st because the start of the summer contest was pushed back by 21 days.
I’ll post again when the website is ready.
Scotty
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voted
I read and casted my votes (i liked the Silver Phoenix)
*Life is tough, ether deal with it or get the hell out of my way!*
*We all have a animal within us have you relesed yours yet?*
I Voted
I read through the stories and cast my ballots. I found the stories plesant enough, and was even surprised by a few of them. Thanks for bringing us the contest this season.
Nadan