Philosophy Through (Science) Fiction Short Story Contest

(Credit: http://www.businessconjunctions.com/2013/10/18/help-cv-bypass-robot/)

There's an exciting announcement over at the Blog of the APA (American Philosophical Association):

Short Story Competition: Philosophy Through Fiction


The basic idea:

We are inviting submissions for the short story competition “Philosophy Through Fiction”, organized by Helen De Cruz (Oxford Brookes University), with editorial board members Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside), Meghan Sullivan (University of Notre Dame), and Mark Silcox (University of Central Oklahoma). The winner of the competition will receive a cash prize of US$500 (funded by the Berry Fund of the APA) and their story will be published in Sci Phi Journal.

And lest you think the contest is restricted to snobby capital-L Literature:

Short stories that are eligible for this competition must be some form of speculative fiction (this includes, but is not limited to, science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternative history, or magical realism), and must explore one or more philosophical ideas. These can be implicit; there is no restriction on which philosophical ideas you explore.

The deadline is Feb. 1, 2017.  Read the full post for details.


Hopefully they'll get a lot of submissions!  This might even encourage me to dust off a story idea of my own to write some fiction for the first time in decades.  Or maybe not.  We'll see if the interstellar robot muse strikes me.

You can read more about the Sci Phi Journal on their website.  I've been aware of this journal for awhile, but unfortunately haven't gotten around to reading it much.  The journal is up for a Hugo this year in the Best Semiprozine category, so be sure to consider it if you're a Hugo voter. (I'll be voting for the Hugos for the first time this year.  More on that soon!).  Even if you're not a Hugo voter with access to all the Hugo packets, they've made their Hugo packet publicly available here.