Thanks to the generous contribution of Tosca Lee, the keynote speaker for the 2014 Realm makers conference, we are excited to announce the first of several scholarship opportunities available to prospective Realm Makers:2015 attendees. Are you dying to come to the conference in August, but sure financial circumstances in your life will prevent you from affording registration and housing? Then this scholarship opportunity might just be your chance.
Here are the details:
Prize: One registration fee and the cost of quad-occupancy housing at Realm Makers: 2015
How to Apply:
- Select the first 500 words of your best speculative fiction to show us you know how to start a story off with a bang that hooks your reader. The submission can be from a published or unpublished novel-length work. All submissions must be double spaced in a clean, readable font.
- In 250 words or less, draft a letter containing the following information:
- Why you have financial need of a scholarship
- Where you are in your writing journey
- Why you believe attending Realm Makers would benefit you
- Compile the 500 word opening sample and the 250 word letter of need into a single document (Microsoft word or .rtf only)
- Make sure your name and email address are in the header of your submission document
- Attach the submission document to an email to info@faithandfantasyalliance.com
- Write “First 500 Scholarship Submission” in the subject line of your email
- Send your submission between the 12:00 AM January 12th and 11:59 PM February 1st
One winner will be selected by committee and notified via the Realm Makers Facebook page at noon on March 2nd, 2015. The winner will be given a single-use coupon code to enter when he or she registers for the 2015 conference. Registration is projected to open in May of 2015.
A few business items:
Realm Makers reserves the right to disqualify any entry that does not adhere to the above guidelines.
By entering the contest, you grant Realm Makers the right to mention you, by name, on all its social media and promotional outlets as the winner.
In the event the winner of the scholarship cannot attend the conference, the scholarship will be re-awarded to the runner up, who will not be named unless such a transfer needs to occur. PLEASE, as a courtesy to those who are seriously intending to attend the conference, do not apply for this scholarship if you are in doubt about your ability to travel to St. Louis in August.
Good luck! Polish up those opening pages and send us your fantastical stories.
Faith & Fantasy Alliance 
Reblogged this on Juliana Writes and commented:
Editing and keeping my fingers crossed!
Does it need to be exactly 500 words? 500 cuts right through a sentence for me. Should I cut off the story before the 500 or finish the sentence?
You can finish out the sentence. That’s fine. 🙂
Reblogged this on Writer's Block and commented:
Awesome opportunity for my fellow writer types. Gonna make some edits and see if I can get in on this sweet action.
Thank you so much for doing this! I can’t wait for Realm Makers 2015!!! 🙂
Does the novel have to be finished? I’m about a quarter of my way through a novel what would be great for this. Can I enter my Beginning if I don’t yet have the End?
The project does not have to be complete for you to enter the beginning words. As long as the work is projected to be novel-length, then it’s fine to enter the opening segment of a work in progress.
Ooh! I will have to think about this. Do the 500 words have to come from a completed project, or can they be from a work in progress?
Works in progress are fine, as long as they are planned to be novel-length. Good luck!
Okay. I know I’m being awfully chatty on here but my cousin just mentioned something and I thought it would be prudent to find out. By submitting my 500 words am I giving you the rights to my story, or my characters? Can I still publish this story once it’s finished without any legal issues? Can I still publish these 500 words?
No worries, Sarah. By entering the contest, you are not surrendering any rights, and the excerpt will not be published by us in any way. The contest in no way limits your options for future submissions or publication.
Thanks. I just wanted to have that in writing. I hope I didn’t insult anyone by asking. On another note. Does the story need to have a title?
Nope, no insults taken around here that I noticed. 🙂 It helps if you title the story just to make sure we keep the submissions straight, but a title is not a condition of being able to submit.
Once again, thank you, so much. I have a few things to adjust on my 500 words and then I’ll be sending it in.
Would you like the writing sample first, followed by the letter of need, or the other way around?
Please put the excerpt first, then the letter of need.
Reblogged at http://love2readlove2write.com/?p=605
Looking forward to this conference so much!
Looks like your reblog worked. Thanks so much for sharing about this opportunity!
Thank you so much, Rebecca! (If you don’t mind, would you please delete the first two posts? For some reason, clicking on “reblog” didn’t work for me, so I had to copy and paste everything on a new blog post. If you follow the first two links, they don’t take you to the repost. I am so sorry to be so much trouble!)
You got it. My pleasure–you’re not trouble at all. 🙂
To end my excerpt with a bang, I have to go 100 words longer than the excerpt is supposed to be. Can I send it in like that or do I need to cut some things?
Sorry, but we can’t allow you to go over more words than finish a sentence. We do understand that the excerpt will therefore sometimes end in a weird spot, but it’s your call as to whether you want to trim to get your “bang” in, or if you just want to keep the wording as-is and stop at 500.
Best of luck!