The winners are:

1st Place and Community Choice Winner: Holiday to Obscurity

2nd Place: Stolen Light

Judge’s note:

Thanks to everyone who entered and voted in this year’s contest! It was a joy to judge, and it was not easy to choose a winner! There were nice stories that didn’t make the finals — e.g. “Disneyland” was thought-provoking with a great atmosphere and “Shhh!” was well written with appealing indigenous representation — and choosing the finalists was difficult. “The Amulet” was a fun, memorable read, and “The Vault” had some really great writing.

The final decision between “Stolen Light” and “Holiday to Obscurity” was very close. It’s hard to compare a microfiction piece against a much longer fiction piece: a higher word count can accomplish much more, but it also needs to accomplish much more. “Holiday to Obscurity” was cohesive microfiction with a nice symmetry to the piece and a strong ending, while “Stolen Light” had some great world-building and character interactions (and was memorably horrifying). Both pieces were well written, but in the end it was the ending of “Stolen Light” that decided me: I felt that the story would have been stronger if the ending responded to the intense emotions of the piece and came back to character, rather than the more general peril of the world. For this reason, “Stolen Light” would require a little more development for publication, while “Holiday to Obscurity” could be published in a microfiction literary magazine with only some basic line editing.

Congratulations to the winners and finalists, and thank you so much to everyone who entered for your courage and hard work! Keep writing

DETERMINATION OF AWARDS

After the close of the challenge, submissions will be judged in two rounds;

In round one, the contest judge will narrow down the initial submissions to a set of 4-7 finalists. These finalists will then be posted to a single discussion channel that will be made available for everyone in the Kingston Area Gamers community to view. For the purposes of this challenge, each entry will be posted to the discussion channel using the provided title, but without mention of the artist's name. This is so that each submission can be read blind (without author names) to reduce bias.

In round two, the contest judge will choose first and second place winners from the set of 4-7 finalists (entries will be judged on writing quality, originality/interest, and overall story quality), while the members of the Kingston Area Gamers community vote for their favorite from the same set of 4-7 finalists to determine the community choice winner. Community voting will open as soon as the discussion channel is made viewable and close at midnight one week later.

After the voting for round two concludes, the results will be announced one day later, with awards handed out as follows;

1st Place Winner: $70 CDN

2nd Place or* Community Choice Winner: $30 CDN

*Note: If the Community Choice winner is different from the First and Second place winners chosen by the contest judge, then the $30 award will go to the Community Choice winner instead of the 2nd Place winner.

Awards will be handed out via electronic transfer once the results are finalized.

ABOUT THE JUDGE

FRANCES KOZIAR is an author living in Kingston, Ontario. She has had over 70 pieces of short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction published in over 45 different literary magazines in Canada and the US, including Canadian Notes and Queries and Riddle Fence. She spent a year working as an editor at the microfiction literary magazine 101 Words, choosing which stories were accepted for publication. As a fiction writer herself, she focuses on high fantasy and contemporary fiction with a social justice focus. This spring, she will also be the panelist representing careers in writing at Kingston’s annual Juvenis youth arts festival. Her website: https://franceskoziar.wixsite.com/author