Do I keep the rights to my story?

If you do not place in the contest, absolutely! Your story will not be published anywhere or seen by anyone except our judges.

If you do place, in exchange for the prize money, we ask for non-exclusive, global, English-language electronic rights to publish your story, both here on our website and potentially as part of an end-of-year anthology.

For Ember’s First Contest, all winners will be notified prior to publication. If they aren’t comfortable with these terms, they will have the opportunity to turn down the prize and not be published in order to keep all rights.

For other contests, by submitting, you agree to be published if you win, and will not be contacted first—we’ve decided it takes some of the fun out of it for winners to know in advance :D

Who are your judges?

Our judges have been carefully selected for their extensive experience in the writing industry, their passion, and the quality of their feedback. All of them are published short fiction writers and accomplished contest veterans, with an array of wins and other accolades under their belt.

Are stories judged anonymously?

Yep! We want to remove our biases as much as possible. We’ll connect your entry back to your registration, but your entry won’t have your name attached to it while we’re reading.

What do you mean by strange prompts?

We mean that lots of writing contests will give you a chance to write about a kitchen utensil or a specific country, but our goal is to provide more through-provoking story starters. Expect wacky, interesting, and exciting!

Is this a game of chance?

No way, no how—this is a contest based on the skill of your writing

How do you handle my data?

Carefully! We’ll only use your name and email in correspondence with you, to sing your praises if you place and we get to publish your story, and to keep you updated about what’s happening at Odd Embers. No selling your data or passing it along to (potentially evil) third parties.

Do I have to write a new story for this contest?

Yes! Please use the prompts to cook up an entirely new story; shoehorning the prompts into something you’ve already written is unlikely to be successful.

What happened to increasing prize amounts?

For Ember’s First Contest, we adjusted prizes as we got registrations, in large part because we weren’t sure how many people would sign up. However, it was honestly kind of a pain in Ember’s butt to keep adjusting and rethinking. Now that we have some sense

That said, if any contest far more entries than we’d anticipated, we’ll still plan to nudge prizes up as appropriate, or perhaps add new ways to win (more places, awards for things like best title, etc.).