BY ENTERING THE CONTEST, YOU AGREE TO THESE OFFICIAL RULES (HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS “Contest Official Rules”), WHICH CONSTITUTE A BINDING CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU AND SHORT ÉDITION.

1. Contest general information

Contest: Long Story Short Award, Short Édition’s annual inter-university writing contest (hereinafter referred to as “Contest”) Organizer: Short Édition Inc., whose registered office is located at 12 rue Ampère, 38000 Grenoble, France (hereinafter referred to as the “Organizer” or “Short Édition”).

2. Stages of the Contest

Submissions

Once a work is submitted (hereinafter referred to as “Submission”) by an author (hereinafter referred to as “Author”) who qualifies according to the eligibility criteria set forth in Section 5, Submission is checked and validated by the Organizer’s editorial team, who ensures that the Submission qualifies based on the minimum requirements set forth herein. Judgments and decisions made by the Organizer’s editorial team as to Submission eligibility or disqualification are at the Organizer’s complete discretion and are final. The Organizer cannot be held responsible towards any other due to a Submission’s qualification or disqualification.

As soon as a Submission is considered as complying with the Contest Official Rules and validated by the Organizer’s editorial team (hereinafter referred to as “Qualifying Submission”), it will be published online throughout period of the Contest, so that online readers can read it and vote for it. Starting from the day of publication and for the whole Contest duration, the Author is not allowed to delete the Qualifying Submission. If the Author's work is accepted elsewhere and he or she wishes to publish elsewhere, then the Author must inform Short Édition before the end of the submissions period (October 29th, 2024), at which point Short Édition will delete the submission from the contest website.

Publication

All submitted works will be published on the contest webpage on November 12th, 2024.

Winners

Once the works are published on the Contest website, the Online Community will have two weeks to vote for their favorite story. Members of the Online Community can vote for as many stories as they wish, but only vote once for each story. Members of the Online Community can comment on as many stories as they wish.

The Organizer’s editorial team will select amongst the submissions one winner (hereinafter referred to as “Winner”) and one Coup de cœur (hereinafter referred to as “Coup de cœur”). There will also be an Online Community winner (hereinafter referred to as “Public Winner”), which will be the story who receives the most Online Community votes.

If a story is selected by the Organizer’s editorial team to be the Winner or Coup de cœur and it is also selected by the Online Community to be a Public Winner, then it will be deemed a Winner or Coup de cœur selected by the jury and the next story with the highest number of Online Community votes will be the Public Winner.

The Prizes

• For the Jury’s Winner: a monetary prize of $550 USD
• For the Jury’s Coup de cœur: a monetary prize $400 USD
• For the Public Winner: a monetary prize of $550 USD

Monetary prizes will be paid to the recipients via Paypal or a wire-transfer by the Organizer. Jury Winner, Public Winner and Coup de cœur are each solely responsible for any applicable taxes on their prize money.

The universities of the public and jury-chosen winners will be awarded free Short Story Discs and eco-friendly paper rolls.

Voting Conditions

The offering of incentives or any other counterpart in exchange for votes or comments is strictly prohibited. The use of bots and/or robotic submissions is prohibited. The Organizer has the right to delete any vote, at any time, where it suspects that such vote violated at least one of the previously mentioned Contest Official Rules, without any liability towards the member of the Online Community or the Author.

Members of the Online Community can vote for as many Qualifying Submissions as they wish, but only vote once for each Qualifying Submission. Members of the Online Community may comment on as many Qualifying Submissions as they wish.

3. Contest duration

The Contest opens on Tuesday, October 8th, 2024 (09:00 a.m. EST) and will remain open until Tuesday, October 29th, 2024 (11:59 p.m. EST). All submitted works will be published on Tuesday, November 12th, 2024. The Organizer’s editorial team review of the Submissions and the Online Community voting will begin on Tuesday, November 12th, 2024 (09:00 a.m. EST) and run through Tuesday, November 26th, 2024 (9:00 a.m. EST). All Winners and Coup de cœur will be announced on Wednesday, November 27th, 2024.

4. Authors eligibility

All students from Short Édition’s university partners are invited to participate in the contest. The eligible university partners (and eligible corresponding email addresses) are the following:

• Brigham Young University - @byu.edu
• Carnegie Mellon University - @cmu.edu
• Harvard University - @harvard.edu
• Hong Kong Baptist University - @hkbu.edu.hk
• Temple University - @temple.edu
• Oberlin College & Conservatory - @oberlin.edu
• National University of Singapore - @u.nus.edu ; @nus.edu.sg
• William & Mary - @wm.edu
• Fayetteville State University - @uncfsu.edu
• Eastern Kentucky University - @eku.edu
• University of Pikeville - @upike.edu
• AP Hogeschool Antwerpen - @ap.be

All Authors must create their author account online and submit their Submission using a valid university email address.

Authors shall choose their own username while creating their author account — this username will therefore be associated with their Submission when published on the Contest website — and shall also provide their full name and contact information to the Organizer via their online account profile. The Organizer must be able to easily get in touch with each Author for any reason.

After Submission, each Author will be emailed a confirmation of receipt. Authors will receive an email if there is a change in status of their Submission.

5. Submission conditions

General Submission Conditions

No purchase is required to submit or to win the Contest. All the Submissions will be reviewed by the Organizer’s editorial team to ensure they comply with the Contest Official Rules. Each Submission can be disqualified if it does not comply with the Contest Official Rules. Each Submission must be new, unpublished, original (read: no AI or borrowed content) and written by the submitting Author and shall be written in English.

The submission process is entirely electronic via the contest website.

No paper manuscripts will be accepted. The submission form is copy/paste format.

Specific Submission Conditions

• Submissions must be only short stories. We do not accept poetry.
• One submission per Author
• Submissions must not exceed 7,500 characters (including spaces).

6. Rights granted on the Submissions

The Author grants to the Organizer the right to publish any Qualifying Submission on the short-edition.com/en website for the Contest duration (hereinafter referred to as the “Temporary License”). This Temporary License allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in the Contest. The Author acknowledges and agrees that no royalties or any other payment of any kind is due in application of the Temporary License.

However, the Organizer reserves the right to contact an Author to enter into a long-form license contract for the publication of its Submission in the Short Story Dispensers around the world outside of the Contest framework. At the end of the Contest, Short Édition will have four (4) weeks to notify the Author of its intent to further publish a Qualifying Submission in Short Edition’s Short Story Dispensers and/or on the Organizer’s website (short-edition.com/en). Upon signing the Publishing Agreement, Author will be paid an advance payment on yearly royalties of 25 euros.

7. Author’s personal data

Submission of the registration details and any prize notification documents (hereinafter referred to as the “Entrant Data”) constitutes the Author’s consent given to the Organizer to obtain, use, and transfer the Author’s name, address and other details for Contest purposes. By accepting a prize, Winners and Coup de cœur give their consent for the use of their names, biographical information, including city, state and country of residence, for promotional purposes (hereinafter referred to as the “Promotion”) by Organizer, and its designees, including but not limited to the posting of their names on the Organizer’s website, in a winners list, without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law. Such Promotion shall be solely under control of the Organizer and/or its licensors, and Winners and Coup de cœur hereby waive any right on the Promotion contents as well as any possible claims of misuse of their names under contract, tort or any other theory of law.

8. Author’s warranties

The Submissions shall not violate or infringe any rights (including but not limited to privacy rights, copyrights, trade secrets, confidential information, trademarks, or trade names). Submissions shall not defame, libel, or slander anyone or any entity. Submissions shall not contain or describe any excessively obscene, vulgar, offensive, profane, or provocative violence or sex scene. Submissions shall not contain derogatory, racist, or sexist language or situations. Submissions shall not contain plagiarism, which includes the use of third-party poetry, song lyrics, characters or another person’s universe, without written permission. Each Author is responsible and shall defend and hold the Organizer harmless from and against any infringement claim related to its Submission.

9. Applicable law – Disputes

This Contest and these Contest Official Rules are submitted to the laws of France. In the event of difficulty over the validity, interpretation or performance of these Contest Official Rules, the Author or the Organizer shall reach the other for an amicable dispute resolution. In case such amicable dispute resolution fails, or no solution is found within thirty (30) days from notification, the Author or the Organizer shall bring the dispute before the competent courts of France.