Season Nine Starts Now: Macabre Edition!
Season Nine Starts Now: Macabre Edition!
Join a community, write, submit and be recognized.
Today marks the start of Lunar Awards season nine! It’s our Macabre Edition, which means we’ve partnered with the spooky folks managing the Macabre Monday Substack. We’ll be accepting submissions for the Short Story category this season, and our prize sponsor is John Coon! The winner and two honorable mentions will receive an eBook of John’s debut horror novel, “Pandora Reborn“. His deadly gang from Macabre Monday will be choosing select stories to receive The Pumpkin Patch (details below).
Sponsor
Recipients of the eBook who live in the United States will receive a copy through an Amazon download link. Recipients who live outside of the United States will receive a free Google Play download code. You can find out more about the book by visiting the Books2Read landing page for “Pandora Reborn”.
The Pumpkin Patch
To qualify for the Pumpkin Patch, your story needs to incorporate some variation of speculative horror or needs to add a speculative element to a Halloween story. We’re embracing the spooky season, and this is your chance to dazzle readers with frights galore! Each Macabre Monday writer will choose one favorite from among this group to award a patch. A single story can receive more than one patch. I will mark these stories with a 🎃 emoji so they’re easier to spot among the other submissions.
The patch reveal will take place soon on Substack Notes and in Substack Chat.
Season Details
Please read the FAQ, which contains the complete rules, including word limits. Ask in the comments if you have questions. The winner and the Pumpkin Patch recipients will be notified on Halloween in the United States, which is October 31.
Short Story Submission Period:
Short stories must be published on Substack after Tuesday, October 1, 2024, 12:00am UTC (season start), and before Monday, October 21, 2024, 11:59am UTC (season end). A total of 21 days. All times are UTC so there is no confusion on time differences.
Award Season Nine Judges:
Prizes
The winner will receive a six-month paid comp to the Lunar Awards, which grants you 7-day early access notification for the next award season.
The winner and honorable mentions will receive an eBook of “Pandora Reborn”, written by John Coon.
The winner will receive a permanent link on the Past Winners page, including a high-resolution badge to display on your Substack.
Short Story Entry
Post a link to your short story in the comments of this post. The entry will be verified with a confirmed ✅ response comment. If it violates a rule, it will be considered temporarily declined until a correction is made.
I'm still not sure what a pumpkin patch is. Is it like your qualification ticks? Or is it simply a mark of 'yeah, I like this story'. If so, how is this different to the judging?
You'll have to forgive me but I am having a 'I am stupid' morning today, and this is not the only thing my brain is not letting me understand.
Having said all of that, I don't know if I can write horror stories. At least, not without them turning into self-conscious postmodern Lovecraftian pastiches.
Thinking of revisiting something I wrote in college for this season, though it won't qualify for the pumpkin patch.