[Edit: The event was rescued by the very kind, generous,and all-around excellent alliance Arataka Research Consortium. Please see the posts below].
'Lo fellow writers, readers, and appreciators of New Eden lore,
I’m not so happy to report that the Pod & Planet EVE fiction contest likely won’t be back this year. Or at least, not in the same embodiment. What has happened is that our primary prizes donor, the constant, faithful and supremely generous sponsor MysteriousAlt, can no longer participate. o7 MA What that means is we might have 7bil isk to distribute among winning writings, instead of an average or 55bil. We’re trying to round up funds for the writers, but successful panhandling is much less likely than it was when we had sponsors we could advertise for and big up. I.e., the old EVE gambling sites, who’d donate to the event for exposure, reputation-building, or just because they were good guys with some extra isk to spare.
So, what this means for us:
a) We can do the writing event as always, but at a much lower level for the awards. But at least we all gather together, write, have what we’ve written read, read, and get a gauge of how our stuff did vs. other stuff rated.
b) Put the whole thing on abeyance until next year.
c) Similar to b). Keep on with what we’re just doing. Very good enough, I’d personally say.
Say if you have thoughts one way or another, ye all.
I’m sure people that just like to write will write regardless of prizes - prizes are just a bonus in my books. Maybe there will be a few less stories, but think positive, at least judges will have an easier time not having to read 70+ stories, many of which take full advantage of the generous word limit.
Excellent news! Arataka Research Consortium (-ARC-) will donate 45 bil ISK. So Pod & Planet for YC120 is on. We’ll announce the start date later in September. Thank you ARC! o7
Yes, we do need judges. I’m just about to evemail last year’s crew to see if they’re available again. Whether they are or aren’t, we can always use more judges. Readers have diverse minds and opinions, a group of judges should also, right? (However, judges or their alts can’t enter stories in the contest, of course But they can post them for everyone to read, as non-entries).
The Pod and Planet writing event’s main place for communicating information will be it’s little website located here. For now, the information is from last year, but this year’s rules will be about exactly the same. We have to be bright-line black-and-white rigid about the rules. Only because you guys write based on what’s posted as the guidelines, and it wouldn’t be fair to change things later.
As much as we’d like to have every work get it’s chance to be read and appreciated. Please read and understand rules. (Kind of crappy to have to impose rules on writers and limits on writers, but there’s no other way to be fair to every
one).
