*This contest is now closed.*
Tales of the Archives Steampunk Short Story Contest
Sponsored by: Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris
Pip Ballantine and her husband Tee Morris are authors of Phoenix Rising: a Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, a 2011 Airship Award-winning steampunk adventure. As well as writing the Ministry novels, Pip and Tee commission and release a podcast of stories by different writers set within the world of the Ministry. This collection is called Tales from the Archives. Listen to the first Tales from the Archives podcast here.
STORY IDEA
“Tales from the Archives: Volume the Second” is a collection of short stories taking place before the events of the Janus Affair: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel.
To support the upcoming second book in the Ministry series, The Janus Affair, Pip and Tee will be releasing Tales from the Archives: Volume the Second as a podcast and as an ebook series. Entries for the contest should set in the Tales of the Archives world and time period.
Pip and Tee are pretty open-minded as to what these events can include, but the basic outline is:
- other cases and agents of the Ministry (whether they are agents featured on the Ministry website or mentioned in Phoenix Rising or Tales from the Archive: Volume 1)
- cases featuring the House of Usher (mentioned and appearing in Phoenix Rising).
- Cases eluded to or mentioned in Phoenix Rising (you will need to read the book and listen to the free podcasts to get an idea of what has already been covered.)
However, in the case of this contest the stories must include either a New Zealand character or a New Zealand setting
Keep in mind that this anthology takes place before or around 1895, and the Ministry has fifty years of history. Even with its relatively brief history, the Ministry is a global agency with its share of agents, artifacts, and mysteries. If you do go to other parts of the Empire or the world, brush up on your history.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Contest Opens: January 1, 2012.
Who can enter? Any resident or citizen of New Zealand.
Word Count: Entries should be between 3000 and 5000 words.
Deadline: January 31, 2012, midnight NZ time.
Submit to: specficnz@gmail.com with “MOPO Competition Submission: (name of story)” in the subject field.
Please send your entry as two different .doc or .rtf files: one file containing the story and one file containing your details (name, contact info, story title and word count). Send the story in standard manuscript format with the title of the story and the word count on the first page, and a short title and the page number on all subsequent pages.
Please DO NOT include your name in the story file: the stories will be sent to Pip and Tee without details for a blind judging.
The winner will be announced on March 31st, 2012 on both the SpecFicNZ and Ministry websites.
DISTRIBUTION
“Tales from the Archives” will be available as an ebook, and also made available as a free audio podcast, distributed primarily through the Ministry website. Under the 3.0 Creative Commons license, others will be invited to syndicate the anthology on their respective blogs and podcasts. The winning writer will also be encouraged to run their respective episode via syndication on their website if they have one.
PAYMENT AND RIGHTS
The winning writer will receive US$50.00 (via PayPal) from Pip and Tee for the story rights, in addition to US$25 of competition prize money from SpecFicNZ, sent to the email or PayPal account of their choice.
As The Tales of the Archives anthology is in association with Harper Voyager’s Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences and Pip and Tee are commissioning these works, the rights of the winning story will belong to them.
SOME OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER
This anthology, while not officially commissioned by Harper Voyager, is the official anthology series for Harper Voyager’s Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. This is not a fancast, nor is this fanfic: the short story collection is commissioned and approved by the authors of the Harper Voyager steampunk series. The winning writer can let people know in their bibliographies that they are a part of this anthology, an anthology edited and compiled by the authors of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series.
If you have any questions, feel free to email us at pip@pjballantine.com (Pip), imaginethat@me.com (Tee), or specficnz@gmail.com
Good luck and we look forward to seeing your entries.
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