Bestselling fantasy author George R. R. Martin (of the amazing series A Song of Ice and Fire, which is right up there on the top of my personal list of favorite books) is making an appearance in the virtual world of Second Life. He’s joining a growing list of politicians, authors and musicians who have been using SL to connect with people in the virtual environment.

Yes, I’m making a virtual appearance in Bantam’s virtual bookstore on Second Life. For those of you who don’t know it, Second Life is… well, sort of like World of Warcraft without the axes, swords, and monsters. Our world, kinda sorta, virtually. Anyway, I’ll be there this Thursday evening, in avatar form, doing a reading from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and doing a Q&A afterwards. Proceedings will start at 9:00pm eastern [2am GMT] and run about an hour. This will be a first for me, so it will be fun to see how it goes. Ah, ’tis a brave new world, surely.

If you’d like to be part of the festivities, get thee to www.secondlife.com. You can sign up there, download the software, and design your own avatar. (I’ve never done a reading with monsters in the audience before, at least not the sort you could tell my looking at ‘em).

The virtual bookstore can only hold about sixty avatars, but the overflow will be able to see and hear the reading from satellite sites, and send questions via IM.

I’ve never done this before either, so that’s about all I can tell you about how things will work… but if you live out in the bookdocks where I’m never likely to visit on a book tour, this virtual appearance could be the next best thing. See you there!

Link to blog post. For those of you with Second Life (and if you don’t have it, get it - it’s very easy to set up), just search “bantam” in the places search tab and teleport over.

See you there!

Each year the University of Georgia Press selects two winners of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Authors of winning manuscripts receive a cash award of $1,000, and their collections are subsequently published by The Press under a standard book contract. The Press may occasionally select more than two winners.

ELIGIBILITY

1. The competition is open to writers in English, whether published or unpublished.
2. Stories that have previously appeared in magazines or in anthologies may be included.
3. Stories previously published in a book-length collection of the author’s own work may not be included.
4. Collections that include long stories or novellas are acceptable. Estimated length of a novella is between 50 and 150 pages. Novels or single novellas will not be considered.

Manuscripts must be submitted between April 1 and May 31 (Postmark should be no later than May 31.)

Link to the award page for further information (via the Poets & Writers, inc. contest calendar)

Elixir Press is sponsoring a chapbook contest open to all fiction writers and poets writing in English. There will be one competition for poetry, fiction, and multi-genre works.

The prize is $1000 plus 25 copies of the chapbook to be published by Elixir Press. All finalists will be considered for publication.

Fiction manuscripts should be 18 to 70 pages in length. Fiction manuscripts may be a collection of short or short-short stories, a long short story, a novel excerpt, or any other form or combination of fiction. Pretty much anything goes for a multi-genre manuscript. Any artwork included must be in black and white.

The entry fee is $20.

The postmark deadline is May 31, 2007.

For the complete guidelines, see the Elixir Press contest page (via the Poets & Writers, inc. contest calendar).

There are six deadlines for poetry prizes on April 31 (this Thursday); all of which grant a prize of at least $1,000 and publication. Here they are:

Oberlin College Press
FIELD Poetry Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Oberlin College Press is given annually for a book-length poetry collection. Submit a manuscript of 50 to 80 pages with a $22 entry fee, which includes a one-year subscription to FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, by May 31.
www.oberlin.edu/ocpress

Sonia Raiziss-Giop Foundation
Bordighera Poetry Prize
A prize of $2,000 and bilingual publication by Bordighera Press is given annually for a book-length poetry collection written in English to be translated into Italian. The cash prize is evenly divided between the poet, who must be a U.S. citizen of identifiable Italian descent, and the translator, who need not be a U.S. citizen. The poet may translate his or her own work. The judge is Daniela Gioseffi. Submit 10 pages of poetry in English or in both English and Italian by May 31. There is no entry fee. Send an SASE or visit the Web site for complete guidelines.
daniela@garden.net
www.italianamericanwriters.com/prize.html

River Styx
International Poetry Contest
A prize of $1,500 and publication in River Styx is given annually for a group of poems. Alan Shapiro will judge. All entries will be considered for publication. Submit up to three poems totaling no more than 14 pages with a $20 entry fee, which includes a one-year subscription to River Styx, by May 31.
www.riverstyx.org

Runes: A Review of Poetry
Runes Award
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Runes: A Review of Poetry is given annually for a single poem. This year’s theme is “connection.” Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman will judge. Submit three poems with a $15 entry fee ($3 for each additional poem), which includes a one-year subscription to Runes, by May 31.
runesrev@aol.com
www.members.aol.com/runes

St. Louis Poetry Center
National Poetry Contest
A prize of $2,000 and publication in Margie is given annually for a single poem. Stephen Dunn will judge. All entries will be considered for publication. Submit up to three poems of no more than 60 lines each with a $15 entry fee ($5 for each additional poem) by May 31.
www.stlouispoetrycenter.org

Winning Writers
War Poetry Contest
A prize of $2,000 and publication on the Web site winningwriters.com is given annually for a single poem on the theme of war. Submit up to three poems totaling no more than 500 lines with a $15 entry fee by May 31.
adam@winningwriters.com
www.winningwriters.com

Blurbs from the Poets & Writers, inc. contest calendar.

The Marlboro Review is offering a prize of $1,000 and publication in the review to the poem or group of poems to win their contest.

Submit up to five poems (any length) and a $15.00 reading fee by May 30, 2007 (postmark date). Make checks payable to the Marlboro Review, Inc. No electronic submissions. No simultaneous submissions accepted for the contest.

Winner will be awarded a $1,000.00 honorarium and the winning poem(s) published in the Summer/Fall 2007 issue. Winners will be notified by fall 2007, and the announcement will be posted on the Marlboro Review website.

Contest is open to U.S. citizens only.

Link to the Marlboro Review contest page (via the Poets & Writers, inc. contest calendar).

The Leaky Cauldron writes:

Thanks to all the readers who mailed about the new contest the Miami Herald is holding asking fans to write their own final chapter to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” In 300 words or less, submissions entered by June 21 from those 18 years and younger may be the winners of a free copy of the last Harry Potter book as well as free tickets to an advance screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Along with Herald columnist Sue Corbett, the judge for this contest will be noted (and very funny) author Dave Barry. Good luck!

Link

Author and blogger Cory Doctorow has an excellent article in defense of fan fiction and the people who write it:

Many pros got their start with fanfic (and many of them still work at it in secret), and many fan-fic writers are happy to scratch their itch by working only with others’ universes, for the sheer joy of it. Some fanfic is great — there’s plenty of Buffy fanfic that trumps the official, licensed tie-in novels — and some is purely dreadful.

Two things are sure about all fanfic, though: first, that people who write and read fanfic are already avid readers of writers whose work they’re paying homage to; and second, that the people who write and read fanfic derive fantastic satisfaction from their labors. This is great news for writers.

Great because fans who are so bought into your fiction that they’ll make it their own are fans forever, fans who’ll evangelize your work to their friends, fans who’ll seek out your work however you publish it.

Our field is incredibly privileged to have such an active fanfic writing practice. Let’s stop treating them like thieves and start treating them like honored guests at a table that we laid just for them.

Link

A military blogger formerly stationed in Iraq won the “Blooker” prize for his book and former blog My War: Killing Time in Iraq, just as US military authorities are cracking down on blogging from the front.

Colby Buzzell was awarded the £5,000 Lulu Blooker prize for My War: Killing Time in Iraq, which was voted the best book of the year based on a blog. It triumphed over 110 entries from 15 countries.

The memoir was drawn from a blog he kept while in Mosul, in northern Iraq, in 2004, in which he portrayed the texture of daily life there, from listening to Metallica on his iPod to watching his fellow “grunts” surf the web for pornography.

The paradox of Buzzell’s victory is that it quickly follows the revelation that the Pentagon has introduced new rules restricting blogs among soldiers, fuelling speculation that live and unadorned combat writing from the field such as Buzzell’s may be the last of its kind.

Matthew Burden, a former major in the US army who runs the most popular milblog, Blackfive, with 3 million unique users a year, said he had been contacted by several serving soldiers who said they were going to stop posting. “They are all putting their hands in the air and saying, ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough.’”

He said the rules were self-defeating and would deter blogs such as acutepolitics@blogspot.com, which is written by a specialist who defuses roadside bombs. “Take that down and you are removing one of the most positive messages for what the army is doing in Iraq,” Mr Burden said.

Link to the Guardian article