Here we go! The MTGBA(s)FC!

If you want to link to the contest, use this page. Thanks to Micah for the artwork.

The topic for this contest is "vision," which we are defining here as:

1. 1. a. The faculty of sight; eyesight: poor vision. b. Something that is or has been seen.
2. 2. Unusual competence in discernment or perception; intelligent foresight: a leader of vision.
3. 3. The manner in which one sees or conceives of something.
4. 4. A mental image produced by the imagination.
5. 5. The mystical experience of seeing as if with the eyes the supernatural or a supernatural being.
6. 6. A person or thing of extraordinary beauty.

So this means your story should include a character or an event which touches on one of those definitions for the word. I wanted to choose something open-ended enough to allow y'all to keep your voice intact. I don't want to guide your story too much, or hamper your creativity. I hope I have succeeded in this.

Here are the rules:

Submissions will be accepted at any time after this post is live on the site until midnight CST on February 7th, 2007, at which time the contest will be closed to new entries. Voting will commence on February 7th (once comments are enabled on the submissions and a new post declaring the contest closed has hit the site) and close at midnight CST on February 12. Winners will be announced on this site on February 14.

Submission Guidelines: Total word length of submissions must not exceed 500 words, and must have an obvious correlation to the topic specified for the contest. All entries must be in English. Entries will be submitted via email to TheMoonTopples@gmail.com, and should be formatted for posting to this blog (no paragraph indentations, the use of double line-breaks, etc.). I may request a resubmission if formatting of your piece for this purpose proves difficult. Entries can be submitted within the body of the submission email or as an attached text file. MS Word documents may be returned to the entrant to be formatted and resubmitted, as they are notoriously unfriendly. Ideal formatting is a plain text file with html codes to indicate italics and the like. I shall make every attempt to retain formatting (such as italicizing) when the entry is posted, but if I miss something, it is the author's responsibility to point out any formatting errors. It is my intention to keep entrants anonymous until the end of voting (in the hopes that voting will be based solely on the writing, and not the internet popularity of the entrant) so any links entrants may wish to add to their individual websites or blogs should link to the contest itself, and not their specific entry until voting has closed and winners have been announced. Entries must not have been previously published in any form (including the author's website) until the contest completes on February 14. Non-fiction and poetry entries will not be considered for this contest. All entries will remain on this site, updated with links to the author's website unless they request I remove them. The email address used to submit your entry should be the one you use for logging in to Amazon dot com, to aid in the prize distribution. This email address will not be shared on the site, or published in any way. I respect the privacy of the entrants.

Entries will be assigned a number and posted to this site in the order received. All entries and the official start of the contest announcement will posted with a the tag "Vision Fiction Contest," and the page generated by clicking this tag is the one entrants should link to once the contest begins. Entries will be predated by one year for the submission portion of the contest, and moved back to the actual submission or post date once the contest concludes. This means they will not appear on the main page of this website.

I seriously doubt any of this will come up, but I reserve the right to deny submissions based on content (the only thing I can think of is if something is genuinely hateful or incredibly inflammatory), suspicion of plagairism, or if the writing does not otherwise meet the requirements of the contest. These submissions (which, again, I doubt I'll receive) will be discarded without reply to the author. They will simply never show up on the site.

Entry Format: Please include "Vision Fiction Contest" in the subject line of your email. Inside the email, please begin with: Real name, preferred screen name (or indication of desire for anonymity) and web site URL for later linking (if applicable). Also include the country in which you reside, for ease of prize distribution later. A real name and valid email address are considered mandatory for submission, to avoid multiple entries. Exceptions to the real name component may be awarded in individual cases. Real names will not be published on this website at any time, unless they are part of the screen name or website you provide in the additional fields.

Prizes! Winners will be selected in each of the following categories

Reader's Choice: One winner to be decided by visitors to this blog. Anyone may vote in this category, but only once. Duplicate entries will be discarded from the total number of votes received. Winning entries will have their votes checked against Site Meter data to encourage fairness. Voting will commence on February 7th, at which point comments will be enabled on these posts for this purpose. Anonymous votes will be discarded from the voting totals. This one is strictly on the honor system, so try to maintain some honor. I can't imagine you want to be caught cheating at a piddly little contest like this. The winner of this title will receive a $20 (USD) Amazon.com gift certificate via email, as well as a badge to put on their website or blog (if applicable). Also bragging rights and the adulation of their peers.

Writer's Choice: Three winners to be determined by the entrants to the contest themselves. Entrants should submit their three favorite entries numbered in order of preference via email. Entrants are to use the same email address used for the initial contest submission, and may not vote for their own entry. I will weigh the votes cast in this fashion by assigning three points to a first choice, two points to a second choice, and one point to a third choice. When voting closes, I will simply add up the numbers to determine the winners. Writer's Choice Prizes: 1st Place winner will receive a $20 (USD) Amazon.com gift certificate and a badge for their website or blog. 2nd Place winner will receive a $15 (USD) Amazon.com gift certificate and a badge for their website or blog. 3rd Place winner will receive a $10 (USD) Amazon.com gift certificate and a badge for their website or blog. All winners in this category will also have the warm glow of knowing they were chosen by their peers.

Maht's Choice: From entries not awarded one of the prizes above, I will select one entry as my personal favorite. Winner of this title will receive a $20 (USD) Amazon.com gift certificate and a badge for their website or blog. Depending on the number and quality of submissions and the sentimentality of myself at the time of judging, I may elect to award additional prizes within this category, with or without prizes as I see fit.

In the event that one entry qualifies for prizes in both the Reader's Choice and Writer's Choice categories, the submission will be awarded the Writer's Choice prize for which it qualified, and the next highest vote total from the Reader's Choice category will determine the winner in that category.

The Amazon.com gift certificates will be awarded via email in U.S. dollars or its equivalent in the currency of the entrant. All prizes will be sent via the email address provided with the entrant's initial submission. I have checked out Amazon.co.uk, and can send prizes via email from there as well. UK entrants should expect their certificates to be one half of the USD amount, due to the conversion rates ($20 works out to about £10, etc.). If a winner comes from an area not covered by one of these two sites, I will contact them via email to work out something suitable.

If you have any questions, please ask. I am hopeful that these ridiculously detailed rules are sufficient to get you all started, but I may have missed something. And if you are wondering about something, chances are someone else is, too.