Finally...

Announcing Anthrofiction Network's Short Story Contest for Spring of 2007

Going back to the simplicity of earlier quarters, this season's theme is Blue Sky.

I've also tweaked the rules for 2007. Paragraph 1: added that sentence about fan-fiction. Paragraph 3: simplified the paragraph and pointed to the definition page. Paragraph 6: added several sentences about entering previously published stories--note, this does not apply to previously entered stories, which are still banned. The scoring section: removed the stuff about a judging panel.

These rule changes are not in response to anything that happened, but to clarify the issues before they arise.

I should probably put something on the website about the prizes.

For 2006 the prize was a 5 x 7 inch (12.6 x 17.7 cm) walnut wall plaque with a hunk of Cripple Creek gold ore epoxied to the face and a little brass nameplate that said: "ANSSC ___ 2006" (the underscores are the season). On the back was a mini-essay as to what the plaque means and why a writer deserves a rock as a prize. 2006 was the "Hidden Gold" prize. I'm running about 2 weeks behind, I still owe our winner Kada his prize... :-( I'll get it to you this month, buddy. I swear!

Anyway, for 2007 I'm switching to a different kind of rock. The 2006 gold was in the form of the telluride sylvanite, which looks like "bleagh" and you needed to be a geology geek to really appreciate it (never mind that some of those rocks probably contain a gram of gold). For 2007 I'm thinking of something a bit flashier, but not normally associated with Colorado. I need to go directly to the mine to buy my rocks this year, so I need to save my spare change. Hopefully I'll have the rocks purchased, cut, face polished, brass name plates bought, and the plaques completed by June 11th. I'll announce the rock type and the name of the prize once I get my rocks. It'll be insanely great! Anyway, hopefully... :-\ Yeah.

Oh, I've got a whole tree full of claro walnut, I like 5 x 7 and rocks, so expect more wall plaques featuring rocks.

Much done, too much more to do.

I've removed all stories from the site except for the stories for this past season (one removed early at the author's request). If you had a story in a past contest I'd love to link to it from the contest site, so let me know.

The site code is an unholy mess. I don't want to make fixing the version 1.0 website into a career when I'm already beating my brain out on the version 2.0 site design. However, I've got an idea how to fix some of the uglier glitches in the design and eliminate the ugly patches. Maybe I'll be able to get this done this week (by the end of the month).

I need to push and get the version 2.0 site complete. The most important feature is that all stories will be behind username and password protection, so none of the stories will be published (in the legal sense). I'm hoping this will encourage people who are starting to think of professional publication to enter their stories. It also means that to enter a story, or to read and score any story, you'll need a free membership on the site--that username and password business. I have several classes of users: writers, readers, temporary readers, moderators, and managers. The difference between writers and readers is how much e-mail I send out (which is nearly nothing now, but you know... I could start). Readers will get only half as many e-mails as writers (once I start sending out e-mails). The temporary reader account is for your brother-in-law who promised to take a look at your story, but doesn't want to be a member of the site. Temporary accounts automatically self-destruct 2 weeks after the end of judging and account information is deleted from the database. It'll all be insanely great! :-D

E-mails. I must get e-mails out to everyone soon.

Thanks for your support.

Scotty