It’s that time of year again — storySouth’s annual Million Writers Award is now open and accepting nominations. The Award is designed to recognize outstanding fiction published online. Hybrid publications are eligible provided they publish the story online first or as the primary method of distribution.

The Million Writers Award has been recognizing online fiction since 2004.Anyone can nominate a story and authors may nominate their own stories. Additionally, editors are invited to nominate up to three stories. This usually results in hundreds of nominations, and from this list a panel of judges made up of editors and writers select the “Notable Stories.” Each year since 2007 Carve has had at least one story recognized as a “Notable Story.” The list of notables is then culled down to a top ten that is voted on by the public. The winner is awarded a stipend and the distinguished honor of being the top online story of the year. Finally, whichever publication garners the most notable stories is awarded as the Notable Publication of the Year.

Since we publish 15-20 stories/year it is always difficult to choose only three for nomination. We always encourage our fans and contributors to nominate all of the stories we publish! Here are our 2013 editor nominations:

• “Carnival” by Scott Atkinson 
• ”The Eternal Youth of Everyone Else” by Adrienne Celt
• ”Starlings” by Joseph Johnson

Nominations are accepted until August 3. If you’d like to nominate one of our stories (be sure it appears in a 2012 issue) you can do so at http://www.storysouth.com/millionwriters/2013-individual-submit.html. If you need a refresher, check out the stories.