Contest Official Rules
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 EDITION.
1. Contest general information
Contest: Long Story Short Award, Short Edition’s annual inter-university writing contest (hereinafter referred to as “Contest”) Organizer: Short Edition Inc., a company registered in Philadelphia (PA), USA, whose registered office is located at 1510 Cecil B. Moore Ave Philadelphia, PA 19121 (hereinafter referred to as the “Organizer” or “Short Edition”).
2. Stages of the Contest
SUBMISSIONS
Once a work is submitted (hereinafter referred to as a “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 a “Qualifying Submission”), it will be published online throughout the submission period of the Contest, as per Section 4, 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 (December 12th, 2020), at which point Short Édition will delete the submission from the contest website.
FINALISTS
From each category (short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction), 15 Submissions will be selected by the Organizer’s editorial team to be finalists of the contest (hereinafter referred to as the “Finalists”), and 15 Submissions from each category will be selected by the online community of readers registered on the Organizer’s website (hereinafter referred to as the “Online Community”) to be finalists, based on the highest number of Online Community votes.
The list of all Finalists will be announced on the Contest website on December 3rd, 2020
If a Submission is selected by the Organizer’s editorial team to be a finalist and it is also selected by the Online Community to be a finalist, then it will be deemed a “jury finalist” and the next Submission with the highest number of Online Community votes will be a finalist.
The Organizer’s editorial team reserves the right to increase the number of Finalists at any time (depending on the amount of submissions), without justification or liability of any kind.
WINNERS
Once the Finalists are announced on the Contest website, the Organizer will reset to zero all the votes made during the submission period of the Contest, as per Section 4, and the Online Community will have two weeks to vote for their favorite Finalist(s). Members of the Online Community can vote for as many Finalists as they wish, but only vote once for each Finalist. Members of the Online Community can comment on as many Finalists as they wish.
The Organizer’s editorial team will select amongst the Finalists one winner (hereinafter referred to as the “Winner”) and one second place runner-up and one third place runner-up (hereinafter referred to as the “Runner(s)-up”) per category. There will also be an Online Community winner (hereinafter referred to as the “Public Winner”) per category, which will be the finalist who receives the most Online Community votes, as well as both a first and second place runner-up.
If a Finalist is selected by the Organizer’s editorial team to be the Winner or a runner-up and it is also selected by the Online Community to be a Public Winner or runner-up, then it will be deemed a Winner or runner-up selected by the jury and the next Finalist with the highest number of Online Community votes will be the Public Winner or runner-up.
THE PRIZES
- For the Juried Winner: a monetary prize of $500 USD
- For the 1st juried runner-up : $300 USD
- For the 2nd juried runner-up : $200 USD
- For the Public Winner: a monetary prize of $500 USD
- For the 1st public runner-up : $300 USD
- For the 2nd public runner-up : $200 USD
Monetary prizes will be paid to the recipients via Paypal or a wire-transfer by the Organizer. The Winner, Public Winner and all Runners-up are each solely responsible for any applicable taxes on their prize money.
The university with the highest number of eligible submissions will be awarded a free Short Story Dispenser. Each eligible submission received will count as one submission, therefore one student can provide up to three submissions (creative nonfiction, short fiction, poetry) for their university.
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. Each member of the Online Community has a certain number of available votes, depending on his/her implication in the community. Further information on that is accessible here.
3. Contest duration
The Contest opens on Monday, October 5th, 2020 (12:00 a.m. EST) and will remain open until Thursday, November 19th, 2020 (11:59 p.m. EST). Finalists will be announced on December 3rd. The Organizer’s editorial team review of the Finalists’ Submissions and the Online Community voting will begin on Monday, December 3rd, 2020 and run through December 17th, 2019 (9:00 a.m. EST). All winners and runners-up will be announced on December 17th.
4. Authors eligibility
All students from Short Edition’s university partners are invited to participate in the contest. The eligible university partners (and eligible corresponding email addresses) are the following:
- Capilano University - @capilanou.ca
- Carnegie Mellon - @cmu.edu
- Harvard - @harvard.edu
- Hong Kong Baptist University - @life.hkbu.edu.hk
- Michigan State University - @msu.edu
- Penn State University - @psu.edu
- Sheffield Hallam University - @shu.ac.uk
- Temple University - @temple.edu
- UNC Chapel Hill - @unc.edu
- University of Iowa - @uiowa.edu
- University of Lincoln - @lincoln.ac.uk
- University of Texas Arlington - @uta.edu
- William & Mary - @email.wm.edu
- Brigham Young University - @byu.edu
All Authors must create their author account online (https://short-edition.com/en/login) 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 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
- All genres are accepted, as long as they fit within the 3 categories: Short Fiction, Poetry and Creative Nonfiction.
- Submissions must not exceed 7,500 characters (including spaces).
FORMATTING:
- Stylistic choices: please note that the Organizer’s editorial team is sensitive to an Author’s stylistic freedom and choices, so these are loose guidelines for formatting and may be altered or ignored if the Author so wishes.
- Dialogue: dialogue should be enclosed in quotation marks.
- Italics: titles of work, narrator thoughts, emphasis on words, and words in a foreign language should be italicized.
- Submission titles: titles for Submissions written in all capital letters will not be preserved, except for acronyms and initials. Please follow typographical norms for writing your title (i.e. capital letter with each word – The Great Gatsby, A River Runs Through It, etc.).
- No indentations: due to the width of the Short Story Dispenser paper, please do not indent any lines.
MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS:
Authors can submit up to one Submission in each category
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 Edition 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). If Short Edition decides to further publish a Qualifying Submission, Short Edition’s current General Terms and Conditions shall constitute a contract between Short Edition and the Author. 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, all winners and runners-up (public and juried) 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 all winners and runners-up 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.