General Information > Short Story Contest

The Wayne State College Science Fiction and Fantasy Club holds a short story contest in conjunction with WillyCon. The contest is open to those who have not had professionally published (more than 5000 copies [in print] and/or hits [Internet published]) a novel or short novel, or more than three short stories, or more than one novelette in any medium. All types of science fiction, fantasy, or horror with fantastic elements are welcome. The stories winning first place in each category will be published in the WillyCon Program book of the current convention year. We appreciate your willingness to be a part of this contest! There are three levels of competition with prize money (to be announced) for the winner in each category:

No entry fee is required and all rights of the story remain the property of the author. Stories have to be the original work of the author, but illustrations may be created by others for you to use. Illustrations are accepted, but not required, as part of the story. Illustrations will be judged separate from the prose and winners of Best Illustration may not necessarily be story winners. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that proper credit and any prize money is given to the artist. If you do include illustrations, please avoid full-page illustrations as they are difficult to include in the program book. Although color illustrations are nice, we reproduce and print in black and white - please make all illustrations black and white line drawings.

*Entries must be received by: February 16th of the convention year
*Adult Category Winner must attend WillyCon to receive prize - children are exempt from the attendance policy...

— Deadline extended to March 4, 2005 for this year's convention! —

Submission Guidelines: Stories should be done on a word processor and double spaced, with Times New Roman 12 point (or similar) font. Do not use any script, or "Dracula," or other fonts that are really cool - while they may look great to you, it makes the manuscript difficult to read. The default font on your word processing software should be adequate. A cover page with the title of the work, the author's name, address, telephone number, which category you are entering, and an approximate word-count is required. Please identify subsequent pages with a few words from the title and page numbers in case pages become separated. Please do not include your name on any page past the cover page. The contest is run on a blind review and the judges do not see entrants' names until winners are chosen. Follow this link for a sample of the short story format.

NOTE: All entries must be submitted on a 3.5" diskette, CD, or via e-mail attachment! (see below) - hard copies are not accepted and will not be judged in the competition! If the story is illustrated, RTF (rich text format) or MS Word (see below) formats should be used to ensure the proper formatting of the story when we receive it...

*Electronic entries in the body of an e-mail do not always arrive as you intended them to look. Please attach your story in RTF, ASCII (text) format, or Microsoft Word 2000 format (preferred). If requested, the diskette or CD (if applicable) containing the story will be returned if you include return postage, otherwise they will be disposed of after the contest. We use PCs, so please save your files accordingly. In the body of your e-mail, please give your name and contact information...

Story length:

Adults (5000-7000 words);
High School/Middle School (1000 - 5000 words);
Elementary (400 - 1000 words).

Send all entries to:

If you are sending your story on a 3.5 diskette, CD, or mini CD, send it to:

WSC SF & F Club Short Story Contest
c/o Stan Gardner, Conn Library
Wayne State College
1111 Main St.
Wayne, NE 68787

Electronic submissions via e-mail must be sent as an attachment (preferred method), not embedded in the body of the e-mail! Send it to Stan Gardner - stgardn1@wsc.edu - with "(indicate category) Short Story Entry" in the subject line. Please be mindful that no virus is included!

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