Spark: A Creative Anthology Contest Eight

Details

Deadline:Jan 4, 2015
Fee:None. Entrants may make an optional donation at http://SparkAnthology.org/support

Theme

Bridges take us from here to there. They signify transition, crossing, and connection. Entries in this contest should feature a transition, crossing, connection, or even a literal bridge. Your bridge may be mechanical—as in our featured artwork—or your bridge may be metaphorical, musical, or magical.

Featured Artwork

The literal interpretation of our theme pictured at the top of the page was provided by poet and photographer James Lewis.

Guest Judges

Formats

  • Poetry: Any style, meter, rhyme scheme, or form, but must be less than 300 lines.
  • Prose: Fiction or creative nonfiction must be no more than 12,000 words.

Awards

There are prizes for both poetry and prose categories, so each prize level has two winners. The Grand Prize award package includes cash, publication, and a Lifetime Premium Membership here at Scribophile. See the contest details page at http://SparkAnthology.org/contests/eight/ for the full prize list.

How to Enter

This contest is not hosted by Scribophile, so posting it for critique won’t enter you in the contest (but it will increase your chances of winning)! For full contest guidelines, rules & restrictions, and links to enter your work, see http://SparkAnthology.org/contests/eight/.

About the Guest Judges

Cherry Potts is a writer and the editor of Arachne Press (London). In addition to managing Arachne Press, she edits anthologies (short stories and poetry) and Young Adult novels. She also organizes live literature events, including the regular The Story Sessions, and the forthcoming Solstice Shorts Festival. Her first collection of stories Mosaic of Air was published in 1992 and has been republished by Arachne Press.

John Chu is a microprocessor architect by day, a writer by night. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming at Boston Review, Bloody Fabulous, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apex Magazine and Tor.com. His short story The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere won a Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 2014.

Prizes

1st prize:See listing

Rules

For full contest guidelines, rules & restrictions, and links to enter your work, see http://SparkAnthology.org/contests/eight/. A few notable points from that list:

  • Publication Rights remain with the author or poet. Grand Prize winners are not obligated to publish their winning entry in Spark, but if our publication offer is accepted, the cash portion of the prize serves to purchase First Publication rights as outlined on our Rights & Rates page.

  • Because this contest is judged blindly—that is, the author’s name is withheld from the judges—please omit personal information (such as author name or contact details) from the manuscript.

  • Judges will be unable to provide feedback on specific pieces.

  • Spark: A Creative Anthology reserves the right to post “No Award” for either category in the event that fewer than 30 total entries are received or fewer than three qualified entries can be selected for the final round of judging. This has happened before: in Contest Three (too few total entries) and Contest Five (too few finalists).

Submission guidelines

  • For full contest guidelines, rules & restrictions, and links to enter your work, see http://SparkAnthology.org/contests/eight/.

  • Contest entries will be accepted from December 15, 2014 until the stroke of 5:00 pm, U.S. Pacific Time, on January 4, 2015. (In other words, make sure your entries are in before 4:59 pm on January 4).

  • There are no genre restrictions for this contest, and content guidelines are similar to our standard submission guidelines, including what we are not accepting.

  • Contests award prizes for poetry and prose according to our contest judging criteria.

  • Prose includes both fiction and creative nonfiction, but we have not divided the category further because we believe that well-written creative nonfiction should tell a story so well that the result is indistinguishable from fiction. Prose must be less than 12,000 words.

  • Poetry includes all styles, meters, and rhyme schemes, or may be free-form. Poetry must be less than 300 lines.