The storySouth Million Writers Award is Now Open

Jason Sanford is the author of a number of short stories, essays, and articles, and an active member of the SFWA. While he was born and raised in the American South, he currently live in the Midwestern U.S. with his wife and sons. His life’s adventures have included working as an archeologist and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand in the 1990s.

He has published a dozen of his short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone, which devoted a special issue to his fiction in December 2010. His fiction has also been published in Year’s Best SF 14 , Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog: Science Fiction and Fact, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Tales of the Unanticipated, The Mississippi Review, Diagram, Pindeldyboz, and other places.

Among the awards and honors he has received include being a finalist for the 2009 Nebula Award for Best Novella, winning both the 2008 and 2009 Interzone Readers’ Polls (and being a co-winner of the 2010 Poll), receiving a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, being nominated for the BSFA Award, and being longlisted for the British Fantasy Award. His fiction has been translated into a number of languages, including Chinese, French, Russian, Polish, and Czech.

He is also co-founded the literary journal storySouth, through which he runs the annual Million Writers Award for best online fiction, which has been highlighted by USA Today, the Utne Reader, and Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market.

His critical essays and book reviews have been published in places like The New York Review of Science Fiction and The Pedestal Magazine, and he writes a monthly column for the Czech SF magazine XB-1. He is also the one who coined the term SciFi Strange. Depending on your thoughts about that subgenre, you can either thank or curse him.

The storySouth Million Writers Award is now open. This is the 10th annual edition of the award, which is for any fictional short story of at least 1,000 words first published in an online publication during 2012. By “publication,” we mean an online magazine or journal with an editorial process (so self-published stories are not eligible).

For the rules, or to make an editor or reader nomination, go to http://storysouth.com/millionwriters.html. The deadline for nominations is August 3rd.

As many people have noticed-and commented upon, oh my how people have commented-this year’s Million Writers Award is starting rather late. In addition, the more sharp-eyed among our fans may notice that the award website and nomination process has a new design and feel.

After nine years of running the Million Writers, Jason no longer has the time to devote to this annual project. Between family and work and his own fiction writing, the MWA has been suffering because he rarely have the time to focus on it.

Which leads to the following annoucement:

Spring Garden Press takes over Million Writers Award

Yes, Spring Garden Press, the publisher of the online literary magazine storySouth, has now taken over running the award. The award process will not change but the great people at Spring Garden Press-including Terry L. Kennedy, Associate Director of the UNCG MFA Writing Program and editor of storySouth, and Shawn Delgado, Million Writers Award editor-will be able to give much more attention to the award. This also allows the award to expand and live beyond the work of a single person.

Donations Needed for Prize Money!

But even though a new crew is running the MWA, they still need donations to fund the award’s prize money. Last year they had nearly $1000 in prize money for the winners; all of this prize money was raised through donations from writers, editors and readers. The hope is they can reach these amounts again.

To donate, go to the main Million Writers Award website.

Thanks to everyone who has taken part in the award in previous years, and Jason and all hope you enjoy it again on the 10th anniversary.