The 2010-11 Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, offering $1000 and publication with Starcherone Books, is now accepting entries.
Contest is open to story collections, novels, or indeterminate prose works up to 400 pages. Manuscripts will be blind-judged; the author's name should appear on the first of two title pages and nowhere else in the manuscript. There is an administrative fee of $30. Please do not send cash. The postmark deadline is February 15, 2010. The winner will be announced in August 2010. All finalists will be considered for publication with Starcherone Books. See our ad in the January-February 2010 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
We are very happy to have as judge for our prize for innovative fiction one of the most startlingly innovative, surreal, and inventive authors of our time, Stacey Levine, author of three books and numerous published stories. Bookforum has praised Levine's "sentences of throat-clutching beauty," and the San Francisco Bay Guardian has called her "one of the most interesting writers working in America today." Levine won the 1994 PEN/West Fiction Award for My Horse and Other Stories (Sun & Moon Press, 1992), and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in 2005 for her novel, Frances Johnson (Clear Cut Press). As well, Green Integer has just re-released her other novel, Dra-.
As Final Judge, Levine will make her selection out of a group of 5-10 finalists selected by our staff readers, and may request additional manuscripts from which to choose a winner.
As always, one manuscript will be selected as winner of our prize. Starcherone does not believe in holding competitions that do not select a winning book.
Previous Winners
2003-4 - Woman With Dark Horses by Aimee Parkison
2004-5 - Hangings: Three Novellas by Nina Shope
2005-6 - The Blue of Her Body by Sara Greenslit
2006-7 - The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason
2007-8 - The Creepy Girl and other stories by Janet Mitchell
2009-10 - Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting (forthcoming in our Fall 2010 season)
Snail Mail Directions
There will be a reading fee of $30. Please do not send cash. The contest
is blind-judged, so the author's name and contact information should appear
on title page and nowhere else in manuscript. (Please also remove mentions
of previous excerpt publications from manuscripts; do not include acknowledgment
pages.) A second title page with only the manuscript title should also be
included. Please mail to:
Electronic
Send your reading fee of $30 to the above snail mail address. Then send
your manuscript as an email attachment to publisher@starcherone.com. Please
send the manuscript either as an Adobe pdf file or an MS Word file. In your
email, give your name and contact information, as well as the title of your
manuscript and a short author bio/publication history. Include only the
title on your manuscript, with no mention of the author's name. If you wish,
include a self-addressed postcard for notification that we have received
both your manuscript and fee, as well as the SASE for contest results. Any
questions may also be referred to publisher@starcherone.com.
Fine Print
In addition to the above, please note the following contest
instructions. Manuscripts may be novels, collections, or any other full-length
work you consider fiction. Collections should include a Table of Contents.
No part of the manuscript should reveal the author's name except the title
page. Please also omit acknowledgments of previously published excerpts in
the manuscript. Please include an SASE with your submission for contest results.
Manuscripts will be recycled after contest results are final. Please also
include with manuscript: 1) a cover sheet with the author's name, street address,
phone, email, and the manuscript title; 2) a one-page bio, including the author's
publication history, in brief. Checks should be made out to Starcherone Books.
The regular contest fee is $30 per entered manuscript. An author can enter
as many times as s/he wishes, adding $30 per manuscript. Manuscripts submitted
elsewhere may be entered, but if an entered manuscript is accepted elsewhere,
please inform Starcherone Books immediately. All decisions by judges are final.
Statements on Ethics
We endorse and agree to comply with the following statement
on Contest Ethics released by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses
in 2005, which Starcherone Books helped develop during virtual roundtable
discussions facilitated by CLMP in the summer of 2005:
CLMP's community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical
contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing
exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines,
and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To
that end, we agree to
1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical
behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors;
2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines -- defining conflict of
interest for all parties involved; and
3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public.
This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results,
but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce
our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that
our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.
Our statements defining conflict of interest situations:
1) The winner of the Starcherone Fiction Prize cannot
be someone whose work that year's Final Judge recognizes during the blind
final-judging process.
2) In order that the best manuscript in the contest not be penalized simply
because a Final Judge recognizes some aspect of the writing or deduces the
author's identity based upon some circumstantial fact, Starcherone agrees
to offer to publish the best manuscript received in our contest each year,
even if this book is disqualified from winning our Prize. In such a circumstance,
the Final Judge agrees to choose a second book as the winner of the Prize,
in accordance with #1, above.
3) If anyone knows of any conflict of interest influencing a result in our
contest, please make us aware of it and we will investigate and report our
findings. Contest fees will be refunded upon request.
4) We ask that contestants realize we are a volunteer-run non-profit, and
need the receipts of our contest in order to pursue our mission to seek the
best innovative fiction and publish it for the purpose of public education
in the art and appreciation of serious fiction. Our contest fees cover costs
related to administering our contest and printing and publicizing the winning
book only. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, financial statements which verify these
statements are subject to federal review.