Million Writers Award

Million Writers Award is a short story literary award presented annually by storySouth since 2003. It honors the best online short stories. The award is structured to be egalitarian allowing for anyone to nominate a story including readers, authors, editors and publishers; prize money is donated by readers and writers; and the winners are selected by public vote from a short-list of entries selected by judges.

The Million Writers Award was founded by author Jason Sanford in 2003 at a time when the literary establishment "didn't believe online magazines were legitimate places to publish fiction," seeing it as a fad. Sanford set out to honor and highlite online only publications and stories with the award.

Stories eligible for the award include those first published in online literary journals, magazines, and e-zines that have an editorial process. The award has a variable cash prize, in 2011 for example it was $600 for the winner, $200 for the runner-up and $100 for third place. Prize money is raised through donations from writers, editors and readers and thus fluctuates each year. Anyone can nominate up to one story, while editors and publishers can nominate three stories. Stories must be at least 1000 words.

The award has become one of the premier online literary awards and was named a Hot Site by USA Today. The award was profiled in a six-page feature interview with editor Jason Sanford in the 2005 Novel and Short Story Writer's Market and mentioned in The 100 Best Trends, 2006: Emerging Developments You Can't Afford to Ignore as an example of the emerging online literary movement.

In 2012 Spotlight Publishing released two anthologies of stories from the Million Writers Award, with one focused on literary stories and the other on science fiction and fantasy stories.

Previous winners.

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

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