Combined AHWA/Melbourne Zombie Convention 2013 Short Story Competition
SUBMISSIONS OPEN Monday 4th March and close Friday 2nd August
The challenge has been set: write an original horror tale based around George Romero-style zombies. No ‘28 Days Later/rage’ sprinting zombies and no ‘Haitian voodoo’ style zombies.
We want ‘dead, and risen from the grave’ style zombies. No runners.
Think Romero’s classic Dead films. Slow moving, moaning, rotten corpses, chowing down on the living.
As the organisers at Melbourne Zombie Convention 2013 put it:
“MelbZomCon will celebrate the conception of the original urban zombie, using the first Romero cult film, Night of the Living Dead as an aesthetic template and thematic landscape. Come along and experience the unsettling terror of the original shambolic reanimated corpse, before the new millennium required it to sprint, mutate and infect to keep pace with the frenetic attention-deficit age. Fog-strewn graveyards; rotting coffins; crumbling tombstones; reignite your appreciation of Romero’s inspired vision of the relentless, classical urban zombie.”
In other words, keep it simple, folks.
Follow these guidelines when submitting to us:
- An original, unpublished story 5,000 words or less.
- No simultaneous or multiple submissions
- Standard submission format, with minimal document formatting.
- Courier or Times New Roman; 12pt; italics as they will appear. No underlining.
- Double spaced.
- Australian English spelling.
- DO NOT use tab or spacing to indent lines. Use ‘styles’ only.
- Please put contact information top left of the first manuscript page and wordcount top right
For a guide to standard submission format, see http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html.
The only variation to this format is that italics MUST appear as they will be used; no underlining.
Stories that fail to follow these requirements will be deleted without being read, so please don’t ruin your chances.
We are asking for one month exclusive electronic rights, after which all rights revert back to the author.
Submissions should be sent as an attachment via email as either an MS Word document or an RTF file.
Write ZOMBIE COMP: “Submission Title” in the subject line of the email.
File name: melbzomcon_submission title_authorname
Please include your full contact details (postal address, e-mail, phone number) as well as word count in the body of your email, and send your submission to:
ahwacomps@australianhorror.com
Prizes:
- 1st – $200 Notions Unlimited Bookshop/Zombiehire.com voucher and one year AHWA membership
- 2nd – Midnight Echo Magazine one-year print subscription and one year AHWA membership
- 3rd – One year AHWA membership
NOTE - AHWA membership is only available to those eligible to be members ie. Australians/NZ/Oceania residents. Any winners who are already AHWA members will receive a one year extension of their membership as part of their prize.
All three prize winners (plus two honourable mentions) will be published online at www.midnightecho.com , the website for Midnight Echo Magazine.
What are you waiting for? The dead to rise? Start writing that undead masterpiece NOW!