Candlelight Awards || OPEN

STATUS UPDATE + New Contest?

Hello everyone, I'm here with good news about the status of this contest.

Before we get into that, thank you for all the love and support on my PSA about the AI situation. I get tagged in many contests and also look through contests in my free time, and the amount of times I've seen people sharing my AI chapter from my various awards warms my heart.

I wasn't expecting such a positive reaction to it, and I appreciate you very much for the overwhelmingly positive reception to it. My #1 goal was to raise awareness about hosts kicking people out over a single AI detection scan from unreliable AI detectors, and to see I've accomplished that goal relieves me.

I hope that awards hosts have adjusted their rules accordingly to protect the participants. If you have any questions about stories you may suspect of using AI, feel free to reach out to me on Discord or Twitter, both of which listed in my bio.

Secondly, psych thriller is the only category not going while everything else is either closed or more than halfway filled, so if you know any psych thriller writers, I'd appreciate it if you tagged them!

Lastly, the reason I'm making this update: this contest is still open but will be in the judging phase. The open categories do not have to worry about this, so everyone is still welcome to submit to the open categories until I put "CLOSED" next to their apply area in the forms chapter.

I will begin with poetry, and then I will move into short stories. In the background, I will be doing the best ongoing category, though please keep in mind it has 20 participants with the strictest judging criteria, so please be patient with me.

I have no idea how long it'll take me, but since poems tend to be short, as are short stories, it probably won't take too long.

Due to the amount of people who have been backing out, you are no longer allowed to back out when I am judging your category. So those in poetry, short stories, and best ongoing are no longer allowed to back out. I have had to scrap tens of thousands of words because of the influx of people backing out, so from now on, when I announce I am judging a category, participants in that category are not allowed to back out. 20+ people have backed out from my summer contests (particularly Padauk, for some reason) in the past two months, so I am requesting you to please at least find someone to take your place if you back out, and not backing out when I am judging your category. Thank you.

I am also almost done judging the Fairy Night Awards (the best fanfic category is finally ready for publication!) and Padauk Awards, therefore I think it's time to announce my plans for the future.

I have a new awards that will be releasing on October 13th, 2024, at 12 a.m. EST. It is called the WHO Mini Awards, and it's going to be my most ambitious and unique awards yet.

I'm actually really, really excited about it. More than any of my other contests. Unlike all my past contests, it will be heavily themed, and said themes will impact the prizes and structure of the contest.

It's a music-themed award book, meaning you'll get many music-themed prizes, and the entire formatting is more like an album. The categories are going to be things like best music video, song of the year, record of the year, etc.

Yes, poetry will be accepted there. Record of the year is the main poetry category (though there is another category that accepts poetry, too, if you don't want to submit to a huge category). It is a huge category with 20 slots. Experimental fiction will have a category as well.

And, yes, you guys asked, so I listened: there will be graphic prizes. This was the single most requested prize, so I am adding graphics to the prize list alongside other things.