The Open Novella Contest is back for 2026! Join fellow storytellers and plant the seed of a tale that will blossom into a 20,000+ word novella within 12 weeks! Your epic quest begins February 1st, 2026, so mark your calendars with this date!

Bcqu is a closely knit research squad which specializes in exploring and documenting the life of dangerous planets. After all, it's easy to coordinate risky plans if you're all the same person. Planet GU-T64A isn't supposed to be one of those missions, but when one of him makes a critical mistake, Speaker is ripped from the rest of himself and thrown into the depths of space. Trapped 10,000 lightyears away from known civilization and floundering as a mere portion of his entire self, Speaker hardly knows how to function. The engineer who effectively murdered him is determined that they work together to steal a ship and find a way home, but the civilization they have landed in offers new and deep connections he never knew he could have. It's no replacement for the rest of himself, but the longer he stays here the more he begins to wonder if returning to his old life is a goal worth pursuing at all. After all, what could be more fulfilling than being understood by minds completely different than your own?

A book club in which members are placed in teams called guilds, where they then work to give extensive feedback and win the victory!