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The 2007 Hammons Prizes for Poetry and Short Fiction

Welcome to the home page of the 2007 Hammons Prizes for Poetry and Short Fiction writing contest!

The writing contest has been concluded. Click here for results.

Building on the success of last year's competition, we're holding another Hammons Prizes for Poetry and Short Fiction writing contest, to be concluded at 12:01 a.m. Mountain Time on Tuesday, October 16, 2007 (Hammons' birthday, in case you were wondering).

The rules are as follows:

Poems and short stories must be submitted through the WRHAMMONS.COM's Authors Who Want to Find a Literary Agent and Get Their Book Published MySpace discussion group (signing up for MySpace is free and only takes a few minutes).

The deadline for final entries is 12:01 a.m. Mountain Time, Tuesday, October 16, 2007. Entries posted in the group after that moment will not be considered for contest purposes (though, as you can see by visiting the group, any poet or author is more than welcome to post his or her work in the group at any time for feedback and exposure to literary agents).

Each entry should be posted as a separate topic, and the topic title must include the words "2007 Hammons Prize Entry - Poetry" or "2007 Hammons Prize Entry - Fiction" in order to avoid confusion as to which category an entry belongs to, confusion with non-contest postings, and confusion with future contests (e.g., 2008 Hammons Prize entries).

To avoid the potential confusion caused by multiple postings of a single entry, each contest entry must be able to fit within the space limitations for a single posting in a MySpace discussion group (if you're not sure your entry will fit, try to post it).

No one may post more than one entry in a given category, though a person may submit both a poem and a short story if they wish to do so.

Each entry must be a complete work able to stand on its own (i.e., no book excerpts, etc.), cannot contain any copyright violations, and must be an original work of the poster.

Due to the fact that last year's contest judges were overwhelmed with the number of entries, and also due to the fact that many discussion group members expressed an interest in, well, discussing the entries, the judging process has been changed. Members of the Authors Who Want to Find a Literary Agent and Get Their Book Published MySpace discussion group will be able to vote for contest entries by posting replies to the topic starter, and entries will be ranked by the number of replies they have received by the October 16th deadline (e.g., a poetry entry by Jane Doe which has received 99 posts will be ranked above an entry which received has 98 posts).

Discussion group members are welcome to, and even encouraged to, include commentary with their voting posts. A post attached to an entry topic is a vote for that entry, so disparaging "American Idol"-esque remarks will most likely be kept to a minimum. Any group member is welcome to vote for as many contest entries as he or she likes up until the October deadline, though an author or poet may not vote for their own entry and no one may vote more than once for a single entry.

Prizes of $75, $50, and $25 will be awarded to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place poems, as well as to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place short stories. Prize monies will be payable via Paypal or mailed check.

Winning entries will be prominently displayed in the WRHAMMONS.COM discussion forums (entry of a poem or story in the contest grants permission for the posting of the work on WRHAMMONS.COM in perpetuity).

Let the Games begin again...

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