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The Aeon Award 2012 Short Fiction Contest

Welcome! Scroll down to find the full set of rules and guidelines for entering your short story in the International Aeon Award Short Fiction Contest, 2012. The Aeon Award is a fiction writing competition for short stories in any speculative fiction genre, i.e. fantasy, science fiction, horror or anything in-between or unclassifiable! The Aeon Award short fiction contest has a Grand Prize of €1000 and publication in Albedo One! Second and third place prizes are €200 and €100 as well as guaranteed publication in Albedo One, the leading Irish magazine of science fiction, fantasy and horror. To your right (and slightly below), you'll find a PayPal payment button which you can use to securely and easily pay the entry fee of €7.50, which we have kept as low as is feasible. PayPal is fast and safe, and you do NOT need to have a PayPal account to choose this payment option! PayPal accepts all major credit cards and debit cards. Try it, it's easier than you think!

We understand that the entry rules in fiction contests and writing competitions can often be confusing and complex, so we have put together an Aeon Award Short Fiction Contest Frequently Asked Questions page and we also welcome queries and questions by email, which may be sent to Frank Ludlow, at fraslaw@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks for your interest in the Aeon Award short fiction contest, and the very best of luck!!!

Albedo One
Ireland's Magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror,
is proud to announce
the Seventh International Aeon Award short fiction contest:

The Aeon Award 2012
Grand Prize: €1000
Second Prize: €200
Third Prize: €100

Plus guaranteed publication in Albedo One for the top three stories
as chosen by our esteemed Grand Judges
Ian Watson, Mike Resnick and Michael Carroll.

The First Place winner will also have the option of publication
in the Storywire section of the excellent Authorlink.com.

Times & Dates

The Aeon Award short fiction writing contest opens 1st January 2012, and runs for four rounds (or quarters) throughout the year. The submission deadline for the first round is March 31st, the second round June 30th, the third round September 30th and the final round November 30th. The final round is of two months duration, the rest of three months. Each round begins immediately after the end of the previous round (i.e. this means you may submit at any time from 1st Jan to 30th Nov).

At the end of each round, the best short story submissions entered in the writing competition will be chosen by a panel of interim judges, comprised of the editorial team of Albedo One and shortlisted for the Aeon Award short fiction contest. The short stories chosen for shortlisting in each round will be announced on the homepage of the Albedo One website (www.albedo1.com) shortly after the end of each round, as the writing competition proceeds. The shortlist and final results will also be printed in Albedo One magazine for all the world to see.

At the end of the writing competition, shortly after Nov 30th 2012, the interim judges will choose the six highest-ranking stories from the competition shortlist. The top three winning stories will be chosen from these six stories by the Grand Judges. The decisions of the interim judging panel, and thereafter of the Grand Judges, are final. No correspondence can be entered into in this regard.

Submission Format & Addresses

Entries should be no more than 10,000 words (but there is no minimum word length) and must be typed, double spaced on one side of A4 (or U.S. equivalent) paper, and submitted by post to:

Aeon Award
8 Bachelor's Walk
Dublin 1
Republic of Ireland

Alternatively, entrants may submit their short stories by e-mail to fraslaw@yahoo.co.uk. Submissions must be pasted within the body of the email. Attachments can not be opened for security reasons. Submissions must also clearly have the words “Aeon Award Submission” in their subject lines to prevent mislabeling as spam.

Receipt of email submissions will be acknowledged. If you have not received an acknowledgement three weeks after submitting by email, please send a query to this (fraslaw@hotmail.com) alternative email address (your entry may have become lost along the way). Receipt of postal submissions will also be acknowledged (if an email address is provided in the cover letter) but the timeframe for acknowledgement depends upon when we receive the entry by post.

Multiple entries are allowed throughout the period of the competition. All short story submissions are judged anonymously by the interim and Grand Judges to ensure impartiality. You may submit any number of short stories, and have any number of short stories on the shortlist. Absolutely no prejudice is held against authors who have submitted more than one work of fiction, or with more than one shortlisted story.

Entries are allowed from ALL nationalities. Indeed, the judges are keen to see work from as many countries as possible. However, entries must be in the English language.

Story Rights & Conditions

Entries to the Aeon Award short fiction contest must NOT have been previously published in ANY format in the English language (if in doubt about eligibility, please do feel free to query us). Entries found to have been previously published in English will be disqualified from the competition. Short stories previously published in languages other than English are eligible to enter the competition. This is in line with our goal of promoting writers and writing in the speculative fiction genres from as many regions of the world as possible.

Short stories submitted to the Aeon Award writing contest in each round must NOT be submitted or published elsewhere in any format until the stories that have been chosen for the shortlist are announced on the Albedo One website after the end of each round. If your story has not been chosen for the shortlist after the round in which it was entered, you are then free to submit elsewhere.

Short stories that are chosen for the shortlist after each round must NOT be submitted or published elsewhere until the top six stories from the shortlist have been chosen and announced on the Albedo One website (normally in December of each year). Shortlisted stories found to have been submitted or published elsewhere before the announcement of the top six shortlisted stories will be disqualified from consideration in the competition.

Once the top six stories are announced, all other stories on the shortlist may be submitted or published elsewhere (i.e. absolutely all rights revert to the authors). Of the top six shortlisted stories, Albedo One retains the right, for a limited time, to publish these stories. Authors of these stories will be informed of whether their story will be published in Albedo One within a maximum of two months from the announcement of the top six shortlisted stories.

Of the top three stories (which are guaranteed publication in Albedo One), these must NOT be published elsewhere until after their publication in Albedo One (i.e. rights revert to the authors upon publication - for those concerned, Albedo One and the Aeon Award short fiction contest never, ever, claim permanent rights to your stories).

Payment Details & Options

All stories entered in the Aeon Award short fiction contest must be accompanied by a modest entry fee of €7.50 (euro).

Payment may be made securely and easily via the PayPal button above. Note, you do NOT need a PayPal account to use this option. PayPal accepts payment from all major credit and debit cards and is internationally recognised as a fast, easy and secure way to make online payments (see www.paypal.com).

You may use PayPal to pay for entries submitted by post or email. For entries paid by PayPal, please provide either your unique Transaction Id code (which will look something like 98B96318D4186023G) OR your unique Receipt Number (which will look something like 2494-4301-2019-0796) with your cover letter (be it for postal or email submissions). These numbers are provided to you by PayPal as you complete the payment process and allow us to verify that you have indeed paid the entry fee (which we have kept as low as is feasible, to ensure that the Aeon Award writing competition is accessible to as many people as possible).

Alternatively, for further alternative payment options (e.g. cheque, bank draft) please contact bobn@yellowbrickroad.ie

The €7.50 entry fee may also be paid in cash enclosed in the envelope with your short story submission.

Please be aware that we will check to see that the entry fee has been paid by one of the above means prior to reading your submission. The Aeon Award short fiction contest is intended to be open to as many people as possible, so if you have any queries or difficulties, please don't hesitate to contact fraslaw@yahoo.co.uk and we will do our best to accomodate you.

We understand that entry rules to fiction contests or writing competitions can be intimidating and complex, so please do feel free to contact us at fraslaw@yahoo.co.uk. But before doing so, you may find an answer to your questions at the Aeon Award writing competition FAQ.