The James White Award is a competition for original short stories of not more than 6,000 words by non-professional writers. The closing date for entries to this year’s competition is midnight (GMT) December 16, 2012. The winner will be announced at Eastercon 2013 (29 March – 1 April, 2013) during the BSFA Awards ceremony (details to be confirmed).
Thanks to the generosity of last year’s winner, Colum Paget, who donated his winning prize back to the Award, this year’s winner will receive £300 plus publication in Interzone. There will also be a £100 prize for the runner-up.
The rules in brief: The James White Award is open to previously unpublished stories of 6000 words or less by non-professional authors from anywhere in the world, but the stories must be written in English. Stories are judged anonymously so names should be removed from manuscripts. You may enter online (strongly preferred) or by post but all entries must be accompanied by a completed entry form. Manuscripts will not be returned. The organisers strongly recommend you read, in full, the rules below before entering.
WHO MAY ENTER?
- This aim of the competition is to highlight new writers. It is open to writers of any age and nationality, but it is not open to professional authors.
- Stories must be in English and must be less than 6,000 words in length. Stories over 6,000 words will be disqualified.
- Each author is allowed to enter one story per year. Authors who attempt to submit more than one story will have all their entries disqualified.
- Each story must be accompanied by a completed entry form.
- The competition is free to enter but we encourage authors (and others) to support the competition by making a donation, if they can.
- For the purposes of this competition a “professional author” is defined as one who is eligible for active membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America – that is a writer with three short story sales to qualifying markets or one novel sale to a qualifying market.
- The date on which this criteria will be judged is the closing date of the competition – not when the submission is made.
- A full list of qualifying markets can be found at the SFWA website. We make one addition to that list, which is Interzone.
YOUR STORY
- Submissions must be original – they should be the sole work of the author/s in whose name they are submitted – and should not have previously appeared in any publication – in any language or format.
- Stories should be Science Fiction (though we will take a broad definition of what that term means).
- Stories may not have been entered in The James White Award in any previous year.
- Stories may not feature characters/locations/ etc. that are part of other copyrighted works – i.e. nothing set in the universes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate etc.
COMPLETE THE FORM
- Online entries must be accompanied by a completed online form.
- Mailed stories must be accompanied by a printed copy of the entry form. The entry form can be downloaded on the “How to Enter” page on the James White Award website or is available from the awards administrator. It should be attached with a paperclip (not staple) to the front page of each story.
FORMATTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT
- If you are sending a printed copy, please print on one side of the paper only, double space the text, leave a sensible margin around the text on all sides (approx. 2.5cm) and indent the first line of each paragraph.
- More advice on sensible manuscript formatting can be found on our writers’ guidelines page.
- Your name should only appear on the entry form.
- Do not put your name anywhere on you manuscript.
- The James White Award is judged anonymously, only the administrator knows the identity of a story’s author.
- Each page of the story should have a header containing the story title and page number. The author’s name should NOT appear on the page header.
- Please end your story with ‘The End’.
ADMINISTRATION
- The closing date for submissions is midnight (GMT) on Sunday, December 16, 2012.
- The competition administrator reserves the right to disqualify a story should it fail to meet any of the above criteria. However, the administrator may, at his or her discretion, offer the opportunity for the author to re-submit a story.
- Shortlisted authors will be informed when the shortlist has been agreed.
- When the shortlist has been agreed a statement will be made on this website. Stories that have not been successfully shortlisted should then be considered released for submission elsewhere.
- We aim to make the announcement of this year’s shortlist on Thursday, 31 January 2013 – but this may vary depending on the number and quality of entries. Entrants should check the “News” page on the website for more details.
- This year’s James White Award will be presented at Eastercon 2013 as part of the BSFA Awards ceremony. Entrants are welcome to attend the award ceremony if they wish (success in the competition is not contingent on being a member of the convention), but travel to the ceremony and any costs incurred are the sole responsibility of entrants.
- The competition administrator reserves the right to refuse to accept or disqualify any submission: in such a case, the administrator will inform the author as soon as possible, giving the reason for refusal or disqualification.
- The award adminstrator and the judges will not enter into correspondence on stories. They cannot offer critiques of stories or advice on how to get published.
- The decisions of the judges are final.
- The judges may decide not to award any prize if, in their opinion, there is no entrant of sufficient quality.
- After the competition has ended, details of the winning entry will be published on the website.
- Any tax liability resulting from the prize is the sole responsibility of the winner.
- We regret that manuscripts cannot be returned after the judging. Please keep a copy.
If anything is unclear, or if you have any questions, please use “Contact Us” page for further information on how to contact the awards administrator.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For submissions: via the online entry page
Website: http://www.jameswhiteaward.com
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