Major Contest 2018: The Hate and Coat Award

Congratulations to everyone who made the longlist. Stories are listed in alphabetical order based on the author’s surname. The longlist will run until the 16th of April.

All Alone In The Desert | Grace Halliday

Writing Prompt

Memories have huge staying power, but like dreams, they thrive in the dark, surviving for decades in the deep waters of our minds like shipwrecks on the sea bed.

– J.G. Ballard

For 2018’s Major Contest we’re asking authors to delve deep into the darker side of human emotions. Anger, fear, resentment, jealousy, hate, cowardice and enmity. Take these darker emotions and tie them to memory, and the influence memory has over the decisions we make and the paths we take.

Can you draw sympathy for a hateful character? Is love really the only answer? These are the types of questions we want you look at when you enter our Major Contest for 2018.

Other things you’ll need to include:

A coat, jacket, overcoat or similar piece of clothing as a vital component to the story.
A deadline that seems unacheivable
A memory that can’t or won’t be forgotten

Genre

All genres are welcome in this contest, be it fantasy, science fiction, realism, fable, horror, literary or any sub genre.

The word count

It’s a major comp so we’re bumping up the word-count to a massive 999 words. No minimum word count as usual, so if you’re feeling daring, you can go short.

The Fee

Major comps mean major prizes, which means entry fees. Here’s the breakdown

One entry: $15 AUD
Three entries: $30 AUD
Patreon Deal: 2 for 1

The Patreon Deal

Every month we fun a Patreon funded award in which all short listed authors receive an equal cut of the prize. To say thank you for helping make this happen, we’re offering a 2 for 1 deal for any Patreon sponsor.

Because Patreon is an ongoing deal, there’s a stipulation. You must stay a Patreon sponsor for at least one month. When submitting your second story, please mark in the body text that this is a Patreon Deal, as well as your Patreon username.This deal can also be used as many times as you like.

The Deadline

Final submissions are due the 28th of February 2018.

Other Rules

Authors must pay the appropriate fee to be considered.
All entries must be labelled cleary in the body text:
- Story Name
- Name of Author
- Name of Award
- Email address of PayPal Account
- Patreon Name if using Patreon 2 for 1.

Due to the volume of stories we receive we cannot chase up incorrect entries. So please do it properly. If you don’t do it properly, just resubmit, that’s the best solution 🙂