It is time for a writ­ing con­test. We gen­er­ally do these once a year, and gen­er­ally towards the end of the year. This year, the con­test begins Octo­ber 1 and ends on Octo­ber 31st.

On Octo­ber 1 I will post a trig­ger on the Lib­erty Hall web­site. You will have from Octo­ber 1 through Octo­ber 14 to write, edit, and sub­mit. You will sub­mit your entries directly to me via e-mail and I will post them anony­mously in a forum on our website.

On Octo­ber 15, I will open the forum for view­ing and I will cre­ate a set of polls for vot­ing. The polls will be open from Octo­ber 15 through Octo­ber 30. On Octo­ber 31 I will post the polls results and iden­tify the winners.

Of course, every­one who par­tic­i­pates will be a win­ner, but the three top sto­ries ( by votes) will receive awards. The awards are as follow:

First place — a per­sonal cri­tique of your story by for­mer mem­ber and cur­rent nov­el­ist Alli­ette de Bodard

Sec­ond place — a new and legal copy of Dragon nat­u­rally speak­ing dic­ta­tion soft­ware ver­sion 11.5

Third-place — a new copy of “Char­ac­ters and View­point” by Orson Scott Card

Win­ners are to con­tact me by e-mail by no later than Novem­ber 15 in order to receive their awards. I will place the first place win­ner directly in touch with Aliette. Sec­ond and third place win­ners should send me their postal addresses so that I can send the awards by mail.

In order to be eli­gi­ble for this con­test you must be a Lib­erty Hall mem­ber and enter at least one Flash Chal­lenge between now and Octo­ber 9. That gives you three oppor­tu­ni­ties to enter a challenge.

In order for your story to be eli­gi­ble in the vot­ing and for you to receive an award, the story must be new, and must clearly be relat­able to the trig­ger. In the event that I dis­qual­ify you because I feel that your story is not relat­able to the trig­ger, I will give you an oppor­tu­nity to argue your case in the forums. Your story must be at least 1000 words and no more than 5000 words. We will use the fol­low­ing web­site to count the words: http://​www​.word​count​tool​.com/. The title will NOT count towards the total word count.

Only Lib­erty Hall mem­bers will be eli­gi­ble to vote. In the event of ties in the vot­ing, I will be the tie-breaker. In the unlikely event of mul­ti­ple ties, I reserve the right to set up a sec­ond com­pe­ti­tion to resolve the ties. In that case, only the per­sons whose sto­ries are ties will be allowed to enter the runoff competition.

So here again are the dates:

Octo­ber 1 — the trig­ger is posted, writ­ing can begin
Octo­ber 9 — the last day you can enter a flash chal­lenge in order to be eli­gi­ble for this con­test
Octo­ber 14 — the last day to sub­mit your entry to me by e-mail
Octo­ber 15 — anony­mous post­ing of all entries in the forums and cre­ation and open­ing of polls for vot­ing
Octo­ber 30 — last day for vot­ing
Octo­ber 31 — post­ing of win­ners and awards or start of a runoff con­test
Novem­ber 15 — con­tact me to receive your awards

My e-mail address is mike.​munsil@​gmail.​com.