Posts Tagged ‘announcement’

The 2020 Cast of Wonders Flash Fiction Contest is here!

With a whisper of magic, the portal begins to open. Travel through, fellow wanderers, and tell us of the stories you find.

Submissions for Cast of Wonders’ Flash Fiction Contest will run from August 15-August 31st, 2020 (12:00 am GMT), via Moksha.

To be a valid submission to the contest, each story must adhere to the following rules:

The story must be no more than 500 words long, not including its title. Do not use the title to skirt around the word count. Word count will be determined using MS Word.

The story must adhere to the general Cast of Wonders Submission Guidelines. Most importantly, it needs to evoke a sense of wonder and be appropriate for a YA audience. We aim for a 12-17 age range: that means sophisticated, non-condescending stories with wide appeal, and without explicit sex, violence or pervasive obscene language.

The story must be original and previously unpublished. Stories will be posted on a members-only portion of the Escape Artists forum, so first publication rights will not be spent if your story does not win.

The person submitting the story must be the story’s author (or acting for the author with express permission) and hold full publishing rights to the story. A story that is derived from a previously published work in another format (i.e. not a short story) may be fine, assuming doing so isn’t in violation of copyright, obviously. This is a grey area – a retelling of a classic tale, or popular culture references, are likely to be fine, but other forms of fanfiction would probably not be appropriate. If in doubt, please send an email to Karissa@escapeartists.net with the subject line “QUERY” and ask before submitting.

If you are not sure whether your story counts as published or not (for example, if an earlier version has appeared on your blog but nowhere else), please send an email to Karissa@escapeartists.net with the subject line “QUERY” and ask before submitting. Please do not submit stories that have been entries in a previous Escape Artists contest, or that are under submission elsewhere.
The story must be submitted in its final form, as the author intends it to be read by the voting public. We may or may not allow minor typo corrections if those slip in, but as a general rule, we will not allow authors to submit changes to stories, especially not after submissions are closed.

Each author may submit only ONE story.

Included in the body of the submission must be the title and the text. Any byline will be stripped when the stories are posted in the contest, and will be revealed when either the story fails to advance, or ultimately wins. Feel free to request a pseudonym for the byline, but we will need a legal name if you win for prize purposes. Please also be sure to include an email address!
Authors under 18 are very welcome and encouraged to submit their work. By submitting, any author under 18 asserts they have obtained the permission of a parent or guardian with whom Escape Artists, Inc. can enter into a contract on behalf of the author.

Winners will be paid $40, making this a pro sale of at least eight cents a word.

Please blog, share on Facebook, tweet, email, send owls, telephone, text, light smoke signals, and otherwise get the word out.

The Cast of Wonders Flash Fiction Contest is here!

With a whisper of magic, the portal begins to open. Travel through, fellow wanderers, and tell us of the stories you find.

Submissions for Cast of Wonders’ Flash Fiction Contest will run from September 1-30, 2018, via Submittable.

To be a valid submission to the contest, each story must adhere to the following rules:

  • The story must be no more than 500 words long, not including its title. Do not use the title to skirt around the word count. Word count will be determined using Google Docs.
  • The story must adhere to the general Cast of Wonders Submission Guidelines. Most importantly, it needs to evoke a sense of wonder and be appropriate for a YA audience. We aim for a 12-17 age range: that means sophisticated, non-condescending stories with wide appeal, and without explicit sex, violence or pervasive obscene language.
  • The story must be original and previously unpublished. Stories will be posted on a members-only portion of the Escape Artists forum, so first publication rights will not be spent if your story does not win.
  • The person submitting the story must be the story’s author (or acting for the author with express permission) and hold full publishing rights to the story. A story that is derived from a previously published work in another format (i.e. not a short story) may be fine, assuming doing so isn’t in violation of copyright, obviously. This is a grey area – a retelling of a classic tale, or popular culture references, are likely to be fine, but other forms of fanfiction would probably not be appropriate. If in doubt, please send an email to katherine@escapeartists.net with the subject line “QUERY” and ask before submitting.
  • If you are not sure whether your story counts as published or not (for example, if an earlier version has appeared on your blog but nowhere else), please send an email to katherine@escapeartists.net with the subject line “QUERY” and ask before submitting. Please do not submit stories that have been entries in a previous Escape Artists contest, or that are under submission elsewhere.
  • The story must be submitted in its final form, as the author intends it to be read by the voting public. We may or may not allow minor typo corrections if those slip in, but as a general rule, we will not allow authors to submit changes to stories, especially not after submissions are closed.
  • Each author may submit only ONE story.
  • Included in the body of the submission must be the title and the text. Any byline will be stripped when the stories are posted in the contest, and will be revealed when either the story fails to advance, or ultimately wins. Feel free to request a pseudonym for the byline, but we will need a legal name if you win for prize purposes. Please also be sure to include an email address!
  • Authors under 18 are very welcome and encouraged to submit their work. By submitting, any author under 18 asserts they have obtained the permission of a parent or guardian with whom Escape Artists, Inc. can enter into a contract on behalf of the author.
  • Winners will be paid $30, making this a pro sale of at least six cents a word.

    • Please blog, share on Facebook, tweet, email, send owls, telephone, text, light smoke signals, and otherwise get the word out.

    A Huge Announcement: Cast of Wonders is joining Escape Artists!

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:20 — 20.3MB)

    Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

    Hello everyone, Marguerite here!

    Two years ago, Graeme and I had an idea. I was taking over as editor and host, and along with Barry we were trying to come up with ways of expanding our audience as well as the formats and types of episodes we could produce.

    Some of those changes you’ve already seen, like the introduction of the Little Wonders flash episodes and our Camp Myth serial. Others haven’t been as visible – bringing aboard additional audio producers and slush readers. We stepped up our convention presence in 2015, with appearances at Nine Worlds in London, WorldCon in Spokane, and we’ll be at FantasyCon later this month in Nottingham.

    All leading up to what today I am thrilled and humbled to announce. Cast of Wonders is about to take one giant step out into the larger genre fiction world, arm in arm with some of the best respected podcasters in the business. In 2016, Cast of Wonders will be joining the Escape Artists family of podcasts, home to Podcastle, Escapepod, and Pseudopod. Did you know that the three shows combined currently have a listenership of over a quarter of a million downloads a month? Combine that with the newly launched Mothership Zeta digital magazine, and EA is one of the largest genre fiction markets out there. There’s no place better suited for Cast of Wonders’ unique and wonderful young adult stories.

    You can listen to EA’s owner, Alasdair Stuart, and myself talk about the announcement in Part 1 of their annual metacast. (Listen to Part 2 and Part 3 as well – free stories!)

    This also means that, as far as I know, Cast of Wonders is about to become the first PRO RATE paying young adult short fiction audio market. That’s right everyone, once the transition is complete, Cast of Wonders will be offering SFWA pro rate payments on all new fiction. Plus stepping up our reprint rates. We’ll have new contracts as well, which we’ll post an example of for our authors to review as part of the migration.

    We don’t have exact dates available to share just yet. To prepare for the change-over we’ve closed to submissions, and we’ll announce when we’ll be re-opening as soon as possible; I’m thinking December is likely right now. There are lots of details still to iron out, and I’d like to prepare a list of great example stories for the EA audience to get to know what we’re about here at Cast of Wonders. If you have some favorites you think should be included, let us know.

    Thanks everyone. From all of us, we hope you’re as excited as we to finally be able to take Cast of Wonders to a new professional level of audio fiction and entertainment. We’ll keep you posted as the details are confirmed. And as always – thanks for listening!