Hello
To Our Readers
This issue’s
premise was deceptively simple: write a story about
character(s) who face a significant loss. Perhaps one-third
of all published fiction fits that premise to some degree.
For that reason, writing a story that brings something new
and makes the story compelling is difficult. Our winning
authors were up to the challenge. They have each created a
story that rewards readers with a fresh perspective or
interesting new twist on familiar themes.
Most challenging for the judges was selecting the winning
stories from a large pool of intriguing, well crafted
entries presented in a wide variety of styles. To narrow
the field, we demanded stories be excellent in all four of
our judging criteria.
And speaking of judging, here are some questions on judging
we’ve received at On The
Premises.
Did
you read my story? Yes! This is a
contest-based magazine that is judged blindly. We read
every story (except those that do not comply with the
rules) because every story could be the winner.
You say you judge blindly, but I just got an e-mail
asking a question about my story. How does that
work? Division of
labor. Each contest has an administrative judge, a reading
judge, and prize judges. The administrative judge processes
all entries and serves as our liaison to the authors. The
reading judge, as the name implies, reads every story. If
the reading judge has a question about the author’s intent,
the administrative judge contacts the author for
clarification. At the end of the contest, the reading judge
selects 10 finalists to send to the prize judges, while the
administrative judge e-mails contestants with entry status
(finalist or not). The prize judges read the stories chosen
as finalists and rank them. The rankings are then tallied
to determine the contest winners.
The judges sent a critique of my story saying it had
typographical errors. Typos are easy to fix. Why did that
little thing count against me? Craft is one of
our judging criteria. And part of being well-crafted is
following rules for spelling, usage, and punctuation,
unless there is a clear story-related reason to break them.
Between two otherwise equal stories, the better proofread
story will always win. And nothing says “I want to win”
more than a story that’s been carefully reviewed to remove
little errors.
Has your regular cartoonist returned from his alien
encounter? Absolutely.
What’s
the best way to improve my chances of winning?
Keep writing
and keep reading.
Bethany Granger,
co-publisher of On The
Premises magazine