Every year, Dream Foundry holds their Emerging Writers Contest for unpublished writers**, and this year, I’m one of the judges!

C.L. Polk will be judging submissions with me, and Julia Rios is coordinating. I’m so hyped to work with both of them, as well as the Dream Foundry staff and volunteers. Some details:

The Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers is an annual no submission fees contest with cash prizes! Every year our contest coordinator selects ten finalists from a pool of submissions from writers around the world. In addition to their cash prizes, winners get featured at Flights of Foundry, an annual convention where professionals from all over the industry come to discuss all things related to the speculative arts.

Full guidelines are on their website. Submissions are open from 1 April, 2024 through 27 May, 2024. Submit one complete and finalized story of up to 10,000 words. First place wins $1,000, second place $500, and third place $200.

I’ve loved the Flights of Foundry convention since it began, and I can’t wait to see which new writers and their awesome stories we’ll be showcasing there this year!

**Technically, per the guidelines, the rules say:

• You have published a total of less than 4,000 words of paid or income-earning speculative fiction in English.
• You have earned a total of less than USD 320 from those words.

So not completely unpublished, just mostly!