Archive For The “Contests” Category
LexiCon, the 38th New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention, are pleased to announce details of two competitions being run as part of the convention: the Short Story and Drabble contests. There will also be competitions for Art, filking, and costuming, with details to come.
SpecFicNZ are proud to support these competitions, and hope that many of you will enter.
Short Story Competition
In association with SpecFicNZ.
Judging
The winners will be selected from the shortlist by our Guest of Honour, Seanan McGuire. Pre-judging will be carried out by Andi Buchanan and Cassie Hart, the LexiCon co-chairs and editors of the Sir Julius Vogel Award winning anthology Tales for Canterbury.
Clawsome Dragon Limericks Winners
Phantom Feather Press received a hoard of dragon limericks from all around the world. The verses made them roar and laugh, and on occasion, breathe fire. So many of the limericks were clawsome! Contestants made a fangtastic effort! Some of the finalists are SpecFicNZ authors.
The winners ( 1st, 2nd & 3rd places) will soon receive a voucher for the e-book Clawsome Dragon Limericks. All winners, honorable mentions and finalists have their limericks in the e-book and their names in the table of contents.
SpecFicNZ
Flash Fiction / Poetry competition
Closes midnight 24th October 2016
Entry is free to members of SpecFicNZ. A fee of NZ$15 per entry applies for non-members.
Conditions of Writing Competition:
- Create an original flash fiction story or poem (not published anywhere else) with the theme:
‘Temperance’
- Your piece of writing, including the title, must be no more than:
- 1000 words for flash fiction
- 300 words for poetry
- Your piece may include elements of speculative fiction (this includes elements such as: supernatural, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and/or weird)
- Entry is free for SpecFicNZ members and $15 for non-members
- Maximum of one entry per person in each category (flash fiction and/or poetry)
- All entries must be received by 12 am (midnight) NZST on Friday 24th October 2016
Formatting:
- be typed using Times New Roman font, 12pt
- be formatted with 1.5 line spacing
- be paragraphed
- be written in English as the main language
- be accurate in spelling, punctuation and grammar
- include: your full name, personal email address, word count and title at the top left hand corner of your first page (see template below)
- Identifying information will not be seen by judging panel
SpecFicNZ Flash Fiction/Poetry submission template
Full name (to be used in publication):
Contact email:
Word Count:
Title:
Please confirm that:
- you are the author of this work Yes / No
- has not been published anywhere else Yes / No
Entry Instructions:
- Put your full name, Title of Text, and category (Flash or Poetry) in the subject line of your email
- Attach as a .doc or .docx file
- Email your entry to: specficnz@gmail.com
Judging
* All judges’ decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into
Steam Press Short SF Story Competition
Steam Press, renowned for titles such as Mansfield with Monsters, The Prince of Soul and the Lighthouse, Wind City, The Factory World, DownMind and others, has been acquired by Eunoia Publishing.
Steam Press will continue to publish speculative fiction.
To celebrate Eunoia acquiring the company, Steam Press is running an international science fiction short story writing competition, with a prize of $USD500.00.
Entries must be 1000–1500 words, and should be science fiction, not fantasy. For more details and to submit your short stories go to: http://www.steampress.co.nz.
Given the short submission window, Dan and I were delighted with the response to this speculative writing competition, receiving 37 entries of an extremely high quality. The stories were wide-ranging in theme and style, although there was a definite nod to science fiction, world-building, and stories with darker aspects. Exactly the kinds of stories we like! While it made for a weekend of excellent reading, it also made it especially hard for us to whittle the list down to just six finalists. Those shortlisted stories were forwarded to Arthur C. Clarke shortlisted writer, Phillip Mann, who had the difficult task of making the final decision.
We’re pleased to announce Mary Brock Jones as the winner of our Ebook Cover competition. Mary will be receiving a cover for her forthcoming novel TORN designed by Kura Carpenter. Congratulations Mary, and thank you to everyone who entered.
Here is the information about the Short Story Competition to be held in conjunction with this year’s national science fiction and fantasy convention, Reconnaissance. From the convention committee:
It is the 5th of November 2015 AD.
The Sun rose at 7am and will set at 4:27pm this afternoon.
On the grassed area outside your factory office window, workers have unearthed a small wooden chest in the trench they are digging which they bring in and set on your desk. There is a padlock still slung to the latch, but it was broken long ago. A brass plate attached to the chest reads “2357AD”
SpecFicNZ is thrilled to announce the winners of the National Poetry Day Competition. Thank you to everyone who entered, and congratulations to:
First place: The Sounds of Evolution by Piper Mejia
Second Place: Encore by Tim Jones
Third Place: A Toast to the Kreigles by Deryn Pittar
Thank you also to our wonderful judges, Lee Murray and Elizabeth Heritage, without whom we may not have been able to pick the best. Here is what they have to say about the competition entries:
Thank you to our poets who contributed their work to our poetry competition in honour of National Poetry Day. The judges had a wonderful session reading and discussing your poems, which ranged from a four line ditty to an ambitious thirty line world-building saga in the manner of Lewis Carroll’s The Jaberwocky. Given the speculative theme, poets tended to address ‘big picture’ concepts such as evolution, time and eternity over smaller ‘slice of life’ observations, yet all the entries received were evocative, thought-provoking and a pleasure to read. Of the winning three poems, we loved the simplicity of the onomatopoeic history of the world in The Sounds of Evolution, from its uncertain beginning with an ellipsis, to the ambiguous twist at the end of the poem. A fun read aloud poem, which we have awarded first place. In Encore, our second place winner, the tale of a rock band’s demise, the economy of words, simple verse, and clever interweaving of musical references hooked us in, and we liked way the reader was left with the idea that music transcends the life of the players. The third place winner, A Toast to the Kreigles, impressed us with its speculative content and especially with its wonderful neologisms, which had both of us longing for a swig of galleymop. Thank you to everyone who submitted, and congratulations to our three winners.
Send us your sci-fi sonnets, your fantasy free verse, your horror heptameters – it’s time for a poetry competition!
NZ Poetry Day is coming up on 22 August, so get writing – you have until 15 August to send us a poem. The rules are simple: your poem must have a spec fic theme; it must be under 30 lines long; and you have to send it to specficnz.fiction@gmail.com with ‘Poetry Competition’ in the email header.
First prize $30, second and third prizes $10 each. All three placed poems will be published on the SpecFicNZ blog on 22 August to celebrate NZ Poetry Day.
Thank you all for participating in the World War I Centenary Competition. Philippa Ballantyne had quite an enjoyable time reading everyone’s pieces. But alas, only three could be chosen. All entries were judged blind.
The entries were judged on best crafted, best use of speculative fiction, and best examination on the effects of World War I. Here are the winning entries which were published with the author’s permission.
1st Place: Carolyn Smith Masefield for Raisins
2nd Place: Jane Percival for The Tobacco Tin
Challenge your creativity with SpecFicShorts – a weekly contest to write a 20-word story using 5 random prompt words.
Entries open when the challenge words are posted in the SpecFicNZ Competitions discussion group each Wednesday morning, and run until about 5pm, when we’ll announce a winner. Make sure to put your entry in the comment thread of the week’s content post, rather than as a new post so that we’re able to easily find it!
No prizes; just a soupçon of glory and a little exercise to get the creative juices flowing.
Congratulations to Anna Smith, the lucky winner of a Kobo Touch loaded with SpecFicNZ members’ works!
Congratulations also to the many other SpecFicNZ members who have won lucky dip books from the swag bag. Are you one of them? Check your email!
Mmm, stationery…
We know you love stationery as much as we do! Celebrating the beautiful colours of the season, our next autumn giveaway comprises three notebooks decorated with the botanical art of Dunedin legend Audrey Eagle. Many thanks to our friends at Te Papa Press for donating these notebooks, which are soft-cover, A5 and lined.
To enter, just email us at specficnz(at)gmail(dot)com with either Powhiwhi, Harakeke or Kowhai in the subject line, and your delivery address in the message body. Three winners will be chosen at random on 9 April 2014. You must be a current member of SpecFicNZ to enter. Join today!
Thanks to our friends at Steam Press, we are kicking off our autumn giveaways with a wonderful bundle of six Kiwi spec fic ebooks!
To enter, email us at specficnz(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Steam Press ebooks’ in the subject line. A winner of all six books will be chosen at random on 25 March 2014. You must be a member of SpecFicNZ to enter. Join now or renew your membership. (If you win but you already own one or two of these marvellous books, you can nominate other recipients of individual titles – spread the largesse!)
Are you a current member of SpecFicNZ? Did you release a title in 2013 or so far in 2014? Have a story in an anthology? Is it available in epub format? Let us know the title and link to where we can purchase the epub file, so we can buy a copy to load into the Kobo Touch we are giving away to one lucky renewing member.
Renew your membership by 31 March 2014 to be in to win!