A. E. Coppard Prize for Fiction
Because size doesn't matter, the White Eagle Coffee Store Press is proud to host their annual Long Fiction Contest. It's named for A.E. Coppard, a writer whose first story was rejected because it was too long to be a short story and too short to be a novel.
Submit your manuscript of between 8,000-14,000 words (30-50 pages double spaced) with a December 15, 2004 postmark. The winner will be announced by May 30, 2005. Prizes for the 2005 A. E. Coppard Prize for Fiction are $500 and 25 copies, plus 40 copies sent free to book publishers/agents, plus 10 press kits to news sources of choice. The entry fee is $15, but all entrants receive a copy of the prize chapbook.
There are no restrictions on style, method, or subject matter.
More information at http://members.aol.com/wecspress/page4.htm.
--AQ
Darklight Anti-fanfic
Aw, shucks. Those boys at SCI FI Pictures take some pretty intriguing concepts and run 'em into the ground. Who selects their scripts? Do they actually pay money for them? Don't they know they could get better scripts for free?
For those of you who watched recent original film, Darklight, on the off chance that they might do something interesting with a kinda neat idea and were horribly, horribly disappointed, some of your fellow optimists here at the Press are hosting an anti-fanfic contest.
Our logic is that it is physically impossible to tell the story of that movie in a manner that stinks worse than the original. So we're going to tell it better. Entertain your fellow sci-fi/thriller enthusiasts with how cool the movie would have been if the screenplay had been based off your version.
Being that the movie is the intellectual property of SCI FI Pictures, stories containing things from the movie won't be judged or put in the Press, but we intend to share them with each other and congratulate ourselves for redeeming a cool idea. You may, however, come up with your own idea for a completely original story containing the demoness Lilith. And that you can submit anywhere you please, including here.
You have until January 31, 2005. Share your trials, tribulations and triumphs along the way in the Darklight anti-fanfic thread in our forums.
For a true Darklight anti-fanfic rewrite, stick to the (still somewhat laughable) summary as seen on the www.scifi.com website and quoted here below, but feel no restraints beyond these words. If you simply intend to write a (better) Lilith story, then do anything you like, so long as Lilith is in it.
Shiri Appleby (TV's Roswell), Richard Burgi (The Sentinel, SCI FI Pictures' Decoys), John de Lancie (Q from the Star Trek franchise) and David Hewlett (Stargate Atlantis, SCI FI Pictures' Boa vs. Python, the indie hit Cube) star in this tale of an ancient demoness named Lilith, who has been captured by a secret society known as The Faith.
Her true nature concealed by a powerful spell, Lilith lives as a 24-year-old woman with no memory of her ageless past -- until William Shaw (Burgi) of The Faith recruits her to help him stop the Demonicos, a rampaging monster that is spreading a lethal plague across the Earth and whose only vulnerability is to Lilith's unique mystical power, known as Darklight.
As the duo race to slay the creature, they unwittingly expose a treacherous conspiracy within The Faith itself. Lilith has the power to set things right -- but now that she has been reawakened to her true nature, will she resume her own evil ways? Trusting her is a life-or-death gamble for humanity, but it's one that William Shaw has no choice but to take.
--AQ
Ghost Stories
The Piker Press in-house contest for October. Send in your chilling tales of things that go bump in the night, Fiction or non-fiction, 500-10,000 words in length. Deadline Wednesday, October 27, 2004. Winners will be announced in the October 30, 2004 issue of the Press. The first place entry will appear as the October 30 cover story. Other winning entries will appear throughout the November issues of the Press.
Direct entries and/or questions to contest@filthypikers.com.
--AQ
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