Laura Resnick announced on Facebook today that Shahid Mahmud, publisher of Galaxy’s Edge and Arc Manor Books, is launching the Mike Resnick Memorial Award for Short Fiction. “In keeping with Mike’s philosophy of helping new writers, the award will be for short works by new writers.”
The award for the best unpublished science fiction short story by a new author will be presented at Dragon Con during the annual Dragon Awards ceremony.
New Author (definition): An author who has not had any work (including short stories, novelettes, novellas and novels) published by any of the professional publishers listed by SFWA as an “eligible” publishing venue.
Eligibility: New science fiction short story by a new author. The story must not have previously been released to the public via any means, including online, digital, or paper publications, or privately through such avenues as newsletters, Patreon and the like. This award is exclusively for science fiction stories, not any other form of speculative genres (including fantasy and horror) and Arc Manor (the publisher of Galaxy’s Edge magazine) will be the final decider of this criteria in case of any disputes.
It will be a juried award. Stories may be submitted between January 1, 2021 and April 30, 2021. Full guidelines are on the award website here,
- The first place winner will get a trophy, a cash award of $250 and have their story bought (at the magazine’s prevailing rate) by Galaxy’s Edge for publication in the magazine.
- Four runners-ups will have their stories displayed on the Galaxy’s Edge website for a period of two-months.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley for the story.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Are the four runner-ups getting paid as well? After all, Galaxy’s Edge is getting first publication rights.
Click
Cat Eldridge: There’s no payment promised except to the winner.
The magazine only takes an option on buying the runners-up —
Galaxy’s Edge may also purchase their stories (at the magazine’s prevailing rate) to be published in a regular issue of the magazine should the editor wish to do do.
I can’t say that I find that acceptable. They’re publishing the stories, so they should be paying for them. If they agree in writing to run them in the print magazine and pay SFWA rates, that’s fine.
Galaxy’s Edge hasn’t been accepting submissions since Resnick became ill. I hope that this contest indicates that the magazine will be buying fiction again soon (apparently they did have a large backlog, since new issues of the magazine have been appearing)
Andrew (not Werdna) says Galaxy’s Edge hasn’t been accepting submissions since Resnick became ill. I hope that this contest indicates that the magazine will be buying fiction again soon (apparently they did have a large backlog, since new issues of the magazine have been appearing)
That’s great. The more SFWA qualified paying fiction outlets, the better. And Galaxy’s Edge is certainly an excellent outlet.
@Cat: I agree completely.