m. c. de marco

Via SFScope: it’s Bulwer-Lytton time again, and the 2008 winners have been denounced—-I mean, announced. Bulwer-Lytton penned the eternal “It was a dark and stormy night,” and the contest challenges writers to produce worse opening lines than that gem.

Via SFScope: Jay Lake will be judging Apex’s Annual Halloween Contest. The word limit is 1,000 words, and submissions (by email) are already open. The theme is Election Horror.

Via a mailing list: Victoria Strauss debunks a fake SFWA contest.

I can only imagine the number of hopeful writers who will be enticed by the SFWA name, not to mention the promise of enormous prizes plus a commercial publishing credit. Once again, however: this contest is a fake.

I’m back on the list of honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest this quarter, along with at least one other Odyssey grad, Dave Hendrickson.

Thanks to Joni for calling about the honorable mention Saturday night, explaining it to me (it’s the top 5% of entrants), and printing everyone’s name (so if you follow the blog entries about this quarter you can extrapolate a rough total number of submissions).

My SASE returned to me yesterday from the Writers of the Future contest, and inside was a cryptic letter saying, in part,

Congratulations! Your story was an Honorable Mention in the quarter ending 30 September (4^th quarter). This means that you have talent!

I dimly recalled getting an Honorable Mention certificate from WotF many quarters ago, but the circumstances escaped me and I wondered what Honorable Mention meant in terms of the results as they used to be reported: no placement, quarter-finalist, semi-finalist, finalist, and winner.

Congratulations to fellow Odyssey graduate Kelly Moore for placing first in the Paranormal category of the Marlene Awards for novel-length romantic fiction.