Albedo One, Ireland’s magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, is proud to announce the Sixth International Aeon Award Short Fiction Contest, for 2011. Grand prize is 1000 euro and publication in Albedo One. Second and third place prizes are 200 and 100 euro, respectively, alongside publication in Albedo One.

This year we have an added bonus prize for the winning story courtesy of the respected Authorlink.com. The winning story will have the option of free one-year publication in the Storywire section, where authors earn royalties from online readers of their work. Authorlink.com is a news, information and marketing site for editors, agents, writers, and readers with more than 50,000 unique visitors a month and a social network of 6,000+ friends. 

The contest is open to stories of up to 10,000 words in any speculative genre, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, or anything in between or unclassifiable. The judges have a very broad definition of what constitutes a genre story. The contest is also open to writers of all nationalities, and the three winning stories will be decided upon by our Grand Judges (whom we will announce shortly). Last year’s Grand Judges were renowned speculative fiction author Ian Watson, Hugo award winning SF author Anne McCaffrey, multiple award winning SF author Mike Resnick and respected Irish horror and crime author, Sam Millar. 

The contest is open from 1st of January 2011 until November 30th 2011, and runs in four rounds, at the end of which the interim judges (comprising the editorial team of Albedo One) will announce on the Albedo One website (www.albedo1.com) a shortlist of those entries they feel worthy of further consideration. The 1st round ends March 31st, the second round, June 30th, the third round September 30th and the final round November 30th.

The aim of the contest is to promote new writers and writing in the speculative fiction genres, and previous contests have certainly shown us that speculative fiction at the shorter lengths is alive and well, despite its many detractors and those who would pronounce the decline of SF, horror, fantasy etc. or the death of the short story.

Previous winners have been announced at the World Science Fiction Convention and European SF Convention, they have been reprinted or received Honourable Mentions in the prestigious Year’s Best Science Fiction and Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror volumes, and have been translated into other European languages and published in their national magazines (e.g. Galaxies SF, in France, and Phase X in Germany). So entering the Aeon Award will certainly get some attention for the respective authors and their work, never mind the prize money and publication in Albedo One.

A modest entry fee of 7 euro applies to all entries, and can be paid easily and securely via PayPal at the Albedo One website. Entries may be submitted to fraslaw@yahoo.co.uk

Full details may be found at the following link: http://www.albedo1.com/aeon_award.html