November 2011 Story Quest Short Story Contest
Finalists and Winners

The turnout for the third Story Quest Short Story Contest was astonishing, and the judges were hard pressed to read through many quality submissions.

While there were numerous good entries, 37 were shortlisted to round 2, and 8 were further shortlisted into Finalist Category, where, of course, the winner, second and third places were determined. Using our judging criteria, we in fact ended up with 9 stories, but the contest rules stipulate that only one story per author can be represented in the finalist list.

By Coincidence - and only coincidence - the first three places were won with stories that effectively radiated around, or were wholly within, the scifi/dystopian genre/subgenres. We were also pleased to see a children's story among the finalists - in our experience this category of writing is particularly difficult to write well, and Bonnie Ferrante certainly succeeded.

We would like to thank Mysti Parker for being our guest judge for contest #3 - we appreciate her valuable input to the judging process, especially her talent for reviews. Please visit her blog site to get a further taste of her expertise.

We would also like to thank all the writers who submitted stories to our contest and hope that they consider doing so again, and encouraging others, in contest #4, when we open again for submissions on 1 August 2012.

Winner: Larry Hodges - a deeply disturbing dystopian story, "Rationalized"
2nd Place: Louis Baum - "No Free Parking at Journey's End", which has classic undertones of scifi and dystopianism
3rd Place: Laura Haddock - an unusual scifi, "The Witness", which takes a unique look at a possible future justice system

We have 5 finalists who have distinctive stories that should be given honorary mention:

Stephanie Barr -  "Masks", a fantasy story with a moral to it
Bonnie Ferrante -a  children's story, "Rumplestiltskin's Child"
Bruce Golden - "Generations", which shows that a homely family gathering can in fact have some excitement
Kenneth Schneyer - "Confinement", a penetrating study of guilt
Nu Yang - "Duet", a psychological horror piece

The winning entries will receive US$100. US$50, and US$25 respectively. All 8 winners/finalists will be published in SQ Magazine #4, in December 2011/January 2012.

Congratulations to ALL! We had a great field, and these worthy winners and finalists deserve accolades.