M.S. James, Prize Winning Author

Well, it's official. My satirical fantasy story "Evolution" won 1st Place in the 15th Annual PARSEC New Writers Short Story Competition!

While I have unfailing faith in all my stories, I was surprised at how well this one did. It was a shorter humor piece and a modern satire based on the prompt "last contact". I'm glad so many people read and enjoyed it.

The final judges were Timothy Zahn, Mary Turzillo, and Diane Turnshek. Which means real spec fic authors read my story and gave it 1st prize! Exciting!

It also means I can be a little less tongue and cheek when I tell my wife I can't mow the lawn because I'm working at my "other job". I also had a moment on Duotrope where I clicked "Acceptance" instead of "Rejection." My story will be published in their Confluence Program, so this is my first official publication as an author.

It's ironic that it came on the heels of my 50th Rejection Extravaganza--- or is it?

50th Rejection Extravaganza

The folks over at Redstone Science Fiction have earned the honor of giving me my 50th rejection. It was a nice rejection, very encouraging, and they took the time to write down why they didn't take it (fantasy outweighed the sci fi component).

Having read through a lot of Redstone related stuff in preparation for their upcoming contest, I learned that the origins of Redstone lay in the fact that many sci fi markets actually publish fantasy. This is very true. The only pure sci fi pro mag I can think of off the top of my head is Analog.

So here's where I'm at for the year:

70 subs
50 rejections
2 maybes
19 pending

There's still time for that one lucky editor to discover me!