Are we to that time of year again? Yes, we are, and this is…

An official call for inclusion in the 2015 Campbellian Anthology! Any individual whose first qualifying sale (at least 3¢/word, for a total of at least $50) was published in 2013 or 2014 is eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer via the 2015 Hugo ballot, and is accordingly invited to participate in this anthology.

Note: This is an unpaid, reprint-only anthology. It will be available as a free download, from January 15 through the end of April, 2015… by which point the Hugo and Campbell nominees should be announced. (If for some reason the announcement of nominees is delayed, the anthology will continue to be available until the actual ballot is public knowledge.)

No one will be compelled to provide material, nor will anyone be shunned/ignored if they choose not to participate; a full list of known, eligible candidates for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and the details of their eligibility, will appear in the finished volume, regardless of whether those individuals also supply fiction for the purpose.

However, if you are eligible, and if you were already planning to make any of your work available to the public, please consider allowing us to include a selection of that material as well. You’ll be in good company, and there is always the possibility that you will pick up a new reader or two along the way.

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Assuming you are currently eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, you are invited to supply your qualifying sale (meaning the first for which you received at least 3¢/word, for a total of at least $50), and up to two additional pieces of your fiction that were published in the same year as, or after, your qualifying sale. Should you wish to participate, but believe your qualifying sale is not a suitable representation of your work, you are welcome to substitute a third piece in its place. Regardless of how you divide your selections, the combined total should be constrained to approximately 20,000 words, split among no more than three works.

If your qualifying sale is submitted, it will be the first story presented under your name; if you are supplying additional work, feel free to specify your preferred sequence. If no sequence is specified for the additional work, we’ll default to the sequence of publication.

We are seeking a one-time, non-exclusive right to reprint the material you supply, with a duration sufficient to ensure exposure for, and facilitate the fair evaluation of, as many eligible writers as choose to participate. Whatever you send though, please make sure that your reprint rights are unencumbered. We can only include stories for which you are allowed to assign these reprint rights. If you aren’t certain, or if the stories you’d like to include are recent enough that it might be questionable, please check with your original publisher first so we don’t step on any toes.

Use the submissions (AT) vintageseason (DOT) com address to send material for the 2015 Campbellian Anthology, and please complete the following form with your submission(s):

Personal Details

Actual name:

Postal address:

E-mail address:

This allows us to send a contract formalizing your inclusion.

Preferred personal pronouns:

For some readers, the Campbellian Anthology may serve as a formal introduction to your work. Although “he/his” and “she/her” pairings are frequently an acceptable default, they are not universally applicable (e.g., “they/their,” “e/es,” “ey/eir,"” “ee/ees,” “em/ems,” et cetera). Let’s get it right.

Preferred personal website or online access point:

If new readers enjoy your contribution, they may wish to seek out more of your work. Do you have a website, with an online bibliography? Would you prefer they seek you out via Twitter? Is Goodreads, Google+, or Facebook your online home? The Campbellian Anthology will include one link, per writer, so that these readers may more easily connect.

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Submission 1

Title:

Byline:

Approximate length:

Attachment:

Special formatting requirements:

These are the basics. Even if your byline and actual name are identical, please fill in the complete form to avoid confusion. Acceptable formats for submission are DOC, RTF, TXT, or ODT. Please do not send PDF, or link to any online resource behind a paywall. If your story relies upon non-Western typography, inline graphics, or hyperlinked connectivity, please note the requirement.

Original publication source:

Original publication date:

Original editor(s) or publishing imprint:

List the magazine, anthology, novel, website, blog, or source that originally published the story or excerpt in question. For magazines please include both the month and year (and day, if applicable to your source); for novels or anthologies, the year is sufficient. For magazines and anthologies, please also include the name of each editor (yes, some publications have more than one editor); for novels, the imprint is sufficient.

Suitable early release/exemption:

Copyright acknowledgment (if necessary):

Are any of your submitted works still exclusively held by the original publication(s)? If the period of exclusivity for any particular sale has not yet ended, you are well within your rights to ask the publisher for an early exemption so that your work might appear in the Campbellian Anthology… but if the right to grant reprints has not already reverted to you, we can’t proceed without such a release. Should the publisher in question stipulate a “by permission of” acknowledgment, a single, appropriate line per work may be added to the copyright page.

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Submission 2

Title:

Byline:

Approximate length:

Attachment:

Special formatting requirements:

Original publication source:

Original publication date:

Original editor(s) or publishing imprint:

Suitable early release/exemption:

Copyright acknowledgment (if necessary):

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Submission 3

Title:

Byline:

Approximate length:

Attachment:

Special formatting requirements:

Original publication source:

Original publication date:

Original editor(s) or publishing imprint:

Suitable early release/exemption:

Copyright acknowledgment (if necessary):

The deadline for inclusion is December 31, 2014. Even if you choose not to include your work in this collection, please help spread the word, so that every eligible writer might have the opportunity to participate.

The firm release date is January 15, 2015. There will be no extensions or delays, because newly-interested readers should have an opportunity to obtain Worldcon memberships so that they might nominate, as well as time to evaluate your fiction before filling out their ballots.

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FAQ

If I participated in the 2014 Campbellian Anthology last year, can I include stories that already appeared in that volume?

Sure, but readers who encountered your work in the previous volume are probably going to expect something new. Unless you are presenting additional/related work alongside the repeated material, doing so is unlikely to be advantageous.

I’m proud of a story that appeared the year before my qualifying sale. Can’t I include it? It’s really good.

Sorry! Your Campbellian eligibility began with the first sale that earned at least 3¢/word, for a total of at least $50. Anything from the same year as your qualifying sale is fine, but no earlier.

I’d really like to include a story that won’t officially appear until after the Campbellian Anthology is released. Can’t I sneak it in?

Alas, The Campbellian Anthology is not a venue for debuting unpublished material. If the story has not yet officially appeared, it is still “unpublished.”

My eligibility started in 2013 and goes through 2014, so I am eligible on the 2015 ballot. I’d like to include an awesome story that’s already out, but the publication is dated 2015. Can I use it?

Nope! Only works dated within the two-year span of your eligibility may be included in the Campbellian Anthology, regardless of when they originally became available to readers.

Okay, so I’m restricted to publications dated within the two-year period of my eligibility. Fair enough… but what about my brilliant self-published, semipro, or free offerings from that span?

To reiterate: Additional work does not necessarily need to come from qualifying, professional venues. If your ability is better represented by a semi-pro sale, feel free to include it. If you are the proudest of a story that first appeared on your blog, that’s fair game, as long as it appeared during your period of eligibility. Although we would strongly prefer to include as many Campbell-qualifying sales as possible, should the reprint rights for your qualifying sale not be available, or if you would prefer not to present that particular work, for whatever unspecified reason, you may substitute another piece from the same qualifying period, so that—if you choose—three representative pieces may still be included.

In any case, please restrict yourself to no more than 20K-ish words, split however you feel is best, among no more than three pieces of fiction. Remember, we want everyone to read as many of the included stories as possible; we don’t want any single individual to monopolize the content. (If you feel your career is best represented by a single longer novella or an excerpt from a full-length novel, please contact me so that we can determine whether it would be better to bend the length restrictions to accommodate an appropriate portion, or simply include the publication info.)

My publisher’s legal department is pretty sticky about rights and such. Can they send you a contract, rather than you sending me one?

No. All contributors to previous volumes of the Campbellian Anthology signed the same contract, with the permission of their respective publishers. No one received special treatment.

If you are eligible to participate, and your publisher is willing for you to do so, you’ll need to sign our contract as well. The contract is straightforward, and exists to protect you as much as to protect us. Here’s the thing, though: We already understand the ramifications of our contract, and there isn’t really time for our lawyers to go over myriad alternate suggestions, variations, or stipulations. In the unlikely event your publisher is unwilling to abide by the language already in place, we’ll still happily include the details of your eligibility, and a single link to your online presence, so that interested readers might find you… but participation has always been an equal-footing affair, and will always remain so.

Got it. I almost hesitate to ask, but will participating in the 2015 Campbellian Anthology improve my chances of winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer?

I honestly have no idea. The 2015 Campbellian Anthology will be the third annual overview of award eligibility, and the past two recipients of the award both elected to participate. Additionally, four of last year’s nominees appeared in the Campbellian Anthology, and the fifth told me he intended to, but was facing a deadline and forgot about the submissions window. Any of those individuals might have earned a nomination or received the award without the added exposure.

Whether or not participation is worthwhile must be your own decision… but I believe it is, and that this early phase of your career is an ideal time to connect with new readers who might become lifelong fans.