Writing Contest Guidelines
Looking for TC's regular Submission Guidelines?
Questions about contest rules can be emailed to the editors or posted at Chasms & Crags.
General Contest Rules
Read these first. These rules apply to all Toasted Cheese contests. Specific rules for the Three Cheers and A Tiger, A Midsummer Tale & Dead of Winter contests are below.
- There are no entry fees for any Toasted Cheese contest. Limit of one entry per person per contest.
- Don't forget to give your story a title and include a word count.
- Grammar, punctuation or spelling errors will count against your entry, so proofread thoroughly.
- Contest entries must be emailed to the address designated for the contest you are entering (see individual contest rules below). Replace [at] with @.
- Paste your entry into the body of the email. Attachments will not be read.
- Place your contact information (name, address, phone number, email address) and a brief biography (100 words maximum) after your story. (All identifying information will be removed before judging.)
- Late entries, entries that do not conform to contest guidelines, and entries sent to any address other than the designated contest address will be disqualified. Toasted Cheese and its staff are not responsible for any electronic transmission problems.
- First, second,* and third* place stories are published in Toasted Cheese Literary Journal. Honorable mentions may also be awarded. (*Toasted Cheese reserves the right to not award second and third place if the quality of the entries does not meet the journal's standards.)
- Feedback on submissions will be limited to a few lines and may include some judges' comments. After the contest is closed, we invite all entrants to post their stories on our critique forums.
- By entering a contest, you grant TC exclusive electronic rights for a period of 90 days, should your work be chosen as a winner, as well as a non-exclusive right to maintain a copy of published work in the literary journal archives indefinitely. Effective January 2008, you also grant Toasted Cheese the right to post an audio version (podcast) of your work on the site (authors of work published 2001–2007 will be contacted to obtain permission for this use). You retain all other rights, including the right to re-publish the work in non-electronic form at any time. Any subsequent publication should include the credit "originally published in Toasted Cheese."
"Exclusive electronic rights" means that you agree not to re-publish your work elsewhere online while the issue featuring your work is current. "Publish" means any public display of your work, and includes your personal website and posting to message boards. You are welcome to link to the page featuring your work instead. Once the issue has been archived, you are free to re-publish your work online.
Be sure to read the General Contest Rules above.
Dead of Winter is a fiction contest (any genre) for stories with horror* elements or themes. Ideally, stories should be set in autumn or winter. The most original, most haunting stories will be chosen for publication.
Details, including specific theme and length, are announced October 1.
The deadline for submissions is December 21.
Entries are blind-judged by Baker & Billiard. Decisions are final. Winners are announced January 31.
Winning stories are published in the March issue of Toasted Cheese. Winners receive Amazon gift certificates: $20 for first, $15 for second, $10 for third.
Stories submitted to the 10th Annual Dead of Winter contest (December 2010) have an OPEN THEME (your entry must follow guidelines below).
- The word limit is 2500–5000 words.
- Stories must be set in winter.
- Stories must fall in the horror genre. As to subgenres, any is allowed but note that the judges prefer gothic, dark fantasy, erotic horror (PG-13 max), noir, psychological horror, quiet/soft horror, and suspense horror. The judges tend not to like sci-fi horror, extreme/splatter horror, Lovecraftian, etc. Please no creepy children, people who don't know they're dead or overdone "monsters" (vampires, were wolves, sasquatch, etc.). As to gore level, we'd far rather know what's going on inside a character's head than to see it on a pike. We want to be disturbed, unable to shake your story and compelled to leave on every light in the house after reading it. See previous placed Dead of Winter entries to get an idea of what the judges enjoy reading (archived March issues).
- The contest opens October 1, 2010 and the deadline for submission is 11:59 PM ET December 21, 2010.
- Email entries to dow2010[at]toasted-cheese.com with the subject line: Dead of Winter Contest Entry
Post any questions you have about the contest in our DoW thread at the forums or tweet them to @toasted_cheese (hashtag: #TCdow10). Please do not post any part of your entry in the thread and be wary of including information that might identify your story on Twitter. If you need to contact an editor with a more specific DOW tweet, please send your Twitter DM to one of these editors: @theryn @amandamarlowe @deoris1 @unanalike @Mollienbonnets
You may post your work for feedback at one of the critique forums but please title your post "DoW entry for feedback" or similar so that the judges don't read it.
*Horror "uses literary techniques to frighten, unsettle or horrify the audience; employs macabre and/or supernatural themes."
