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The following are the official contest entry rules for the 2011-2012 Friends of Merril Short Story Contest. If you still have questions, or require more information, after reading them, please see our FAQ page or send an e-mail to Michael Matheson at fomsscontest@gmail.com.

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Entry (Periods and Fees)

Contest Period: The reading period for the Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest is from November 15, 2011 to 11:59 p.m. EST (UTC-4) February 15, 2012. Any entries received after the contest closes will not be eligible for entry. If mailing a hard copy of your submission please send it at least one week before the contest closes so it has time to reach us. If hand delivering a hard copy to the Merril please do so before the Merril Collection closes for the day (6 p.m.). The submissions addresses (electronic and physical) are listed below in the Submissions section.

Entry Fee: All stories submitted to the Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest must be accompanied by a $5.00 (CDN) entry fee (this fee is used to fund the winners’ purse). Please note we will not read a submitted story until we have received an entry fee for it. If you are submitting electronically, we recommend that you pay your entry fee first and then submit your story so that you can include your proof of payment in your submission cover letter. The entry fee can be paid in one of three ways:

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• Via the PayPal button in the navigation menu on the right hand side of the screen (available Nov. 15, 2011). If paying by PayPal please pay before you submit your story and include your Transaction ID (17 characters, letters and #s) in your cover letter as proof of payment. We will cross-reference this number with the contest PayPal account to corroborate payment of the entry fee.
• By cash, either on its own (enclosed in a sealed envelope with a note telling us your name and the name of your story, the package to be dropped off at the Merril Collection front desk) if you submitted electronically and do not wish to use PayPal, or enclosed with your manuscript submission if you submitted a hard copy.
• By cheque (if it’s absolutely necessary), either on it’s own (dropped off at the Merril Collection front desk) if you submitted electronically and do not wish to use PayPal, or enclosed with your manuscript submission if you submitted a hard copy. If you submitted multiple stories and are paying by cheque you may pay for them all with the same cheque, but please note the number of submissions the cheque is for in the memo line so we can track your submissions properly.

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Submissions

Content: All entries submitted to the Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest must have a Speculative Fiction element (see the FAQ page for our definition). As the Friends of the Merril are tied to the Merril Collection of the Toronto Public Library system we do have to follow some display precepts since the winning stories will be posted up on this website, but you can see our FAQ page for more information related to submissions content.

Eligibility: The Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest is open to all writers of all levels (published, unpublished, emerging, etc.), without restriction. The contest is international, so writers of any nation may enter. We do suggest that if you are not entering locally (in this case Toronto is our “local”) you should probably submit your entry electronically, but if you’re more comfortable sending a hard copy then do so. However, we intend to treat all mailed manuscripts as disposable, so please do not include an IRC or SASE with hard copy submissions. No manuscripts will be returned. Do not send originals. We respond to all entries via e-mail (you must include an e-mail address in your submission package or your entry is considered invalid).

Number of Submissions: You are allowed to submit up to 3 entries during any contest year of the Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest. Each entry must be accompanied by a separate entry fee.

Submission Type and Length: Your entries must be stories, and must be a maximum of 4,000 words in length. The Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest does not accept poetry.

Submission Format (Electronic): Entries should be e-mailed to us at fomsscontest@gmail.com with the words “Submission: Story Title” in the Subject line. All entries must use Standard Manuscript Format and be attached to your e-mail as a .rtf file only. Include a brief cover letter in your e-mail with your Contact Info (name, address, telephone number and e-mail address), story title and word count. We will request bios of the winning entrants so you don’t need to include one.

Submission Format (Hard Copy): Entries should be mailed to us at

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The Friends of the Merril Collection Short Story Contest

c/o The Merril Collection, Toronto Public Library

239 College Street, 3rd floor, Toronto, ON, M5T 1R5

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Entries may also be handed in at the Merril Collection itself. If physically dropping off your hard copy entry please hand it to a Merril librarian behind the Collection desk. Do not simply leave it on the desk and walk away. All entries must use Standard Manuscript Format. Include a brief cover letter with the hard copy of your story with Contact Info (name, address, telephone number and e-mail address), story title and word count. We will request bios of the winning entrants so you don’t need to include one.

Response Time for Submissions: We try to respond to all submissions within one week’s time of their arrival, but if you have not heard from us within two weeks of having submitted your entry please query us at the contest e-mail address (fomsscontest@mail.com) with the words “Query: Receipt – Story Title” in the Subject line. Please provide the date sent and let us know whether your entry was filed electronically or as a hard copy through the post or dropped off at the Merril.

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Adjudication of Entries

Preliminary Judging: During the three month reading period, all stories will be read by a team of slush readers and those stories not selected as finalists will be rejected; notification will be sent by e-mail. All stories are judged blind (we will remove the names from all entries, please include them in your submission). No final decision as to the nine stories selected as finalists will be made until two weeks after the end of the reading period (March 1, 2012) to allow for the reading of entries submitted at the last possible moment. As of March 2012 a selection of nine finalists will be handed over to the Panel Judges for consideration and voting. At that time the story titles of the nine finalist entries will be posted to the contest website and the nine finalists will be notified via e-mail of their position on the short list.

Final Judging: The empanelled judges will each be allowed to vote for three of the nine stories, and the story with the most votes wins, and so on down through third place. Final selections as to the winning stories will be made no later than March 31, 2012, at which time all the finalists will be notified via e-mail to inform them of the results.

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Prizes, Publication and Payment

Prizes: The prizes awarded to the winning entries are as follows:

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First Prize: $350.00 (CDN) and 1 copy of the limited edition booklet containing the winning stories

Second Prize: $100.00 (CDN) and 1 copy of the limited edition booklet containing the winning stories

Third Prize: $50.00 (CDN) and 1 copy of the limited edition booklet containing the winning stories

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These prizes are fixed amounts, funded by the contest entry fees. All monies raised in excess of the amount required to pay for the prizes will be used by the Friends of the Merril in support of the Merril Collection, in accordance with their mandate as stated on the Friends of the Merril Collection website.

Publication / Posting of Names and Stories to the Contest Website: The Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest will require the three winning writers to sign (or if under the age of majority in their place of residence then a parent or legal guardian must sign on their behalf) a contract allowing for electronic display (for a defined period – for more information see Rights below) of their respective stories. This contract must be signed and returned (electronically) before April 31, 2012 so that the stories may be posted and payment of prize money made. The Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest reserves the right to leave the names and story titles of all nine finalists up on the contest website indefinitely.

Payment: The winning stories will be posted as soon as possible and monetary payment of the prizes will be paid to the winning authors no later than April 31, 2012 (pursuant to return of signed contract). Payment may be made either by cheque or through PayPal, as requested by the winning entrants.

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Rights

Rights Purchased: The Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest will purchase – via contract – from the winning entrants the following rights: 1. First Worldwide Electronic Rights. 2. Non-Exclusive Print and Electronic Anthology Rights (at this time there are no immediate plans to produce an anthology, or anthologies, related to this contest; but we have not ruled out the possibility of doing so in future), and First North American Print Rights (in order to produce the limited edition booklets being produced as part of the prize pool).  We request the right to archive the winning stories on the contest website indefinitely unless requested otherwise by the authors.

Display Period For Winning Stories: The winning entries will be displayed on the Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest website for a period of three calendar months after the conclusion of the contest. We will be archiving stories on the contest website unless requested otherwise by the story’s author. If you allow us to archive your story you may at any time later, for any reason, ask us to remove the story from the contest website archives and we will do so.

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Conditions

All entries submitted to the Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest must be previously unpublished, original (plagiarism or fraudulent entries will result in disqualification) work. The exception to this rule is fiction not previously published in English: material previously published in another language and translated into English is acceptable.

We will not accept simultaneous submissions (this is grounds for disqualification), and any stories you enter in excess of the allowable 3 will be considered ineligible.

We reserve the right to edit stories as necessary regarding basic copyediting.

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The Big Why (And How You Can Help Whether You Enter Or Not)

We know that for many writers the idea of entry fee based contests is a touchy subject, both because of the fraudulent practices that choke the field like the risen dead clawing their way free from rotting loam, and because of the idea of the fees themselves.

We, the Friends of the Merril Collection, would like to make very clear the fact that we are not charging “reading fees”. We are running a contest. We are charging an entry fee for each eligible submission because we are trying to raise funds to aid the Merril Collection, and to raise awareness of the Collection. We are potentially accepting donations toward the prize pool as well (query if interested), but as we are trying to refrain from drawing on the already accrued financial resources available to the Friends of the Merril in order to run this contest, we are charging entry fees.

However, our prize monies are guaranteed whether we hit our goal or not. Do not misunderstand us, we hope to do vastly more than simply raise the sum we need to meet the prize monies guaranteed. We are looking to engage good old fashioned barn-raising, put-on-a-show, shoot-for-the-moon fundraising. Some organizations run bake sales. We work with fiction. And what better way to work with fiction than by encouraging lovers and practitioners, amateurs and professionals, enthusiasts and connoisseurs of that craft to write and try for some cash prizes?

We hope you’ll help. You don’t even have to enter to do it. Help us spread the word. Tell a friend. Tell five. Tell ten. Blog about the contest. Tweet about it. Whatever you can and are willing to do to help, know that we appreciate it more than we can say. Because at its heart, the Merril Collection is about the love of fiction, be it Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, or any of the other of the indefinable branches of Speculative Fiction, and the wide world of mainstream Lit lying just beyond our doorstep. It is about discovery and change and imagination. It is about the power of the written word to motivate and move and foment and catalyze and crystallize and inspire.

It is about wonder.

And if that isn’t something to get behind we don’t know what is.