Apologies for my lack of punctuality in making this announcement, but two hours ago the deadline for the new blood contest was reached.

However, there were a couple of last minute submissions after the deadline, but they were announced to me beforehand with a link to the unpublished version so they remain valid.

From now on, the submissions folder is officially closed.

For a moment we (the judges who shall remain secret until the results are out!) didn't think we would make it past 20 entries, but to our surprise it surpassed our expectations with a total of 31 entries (three are still pending in the queue).

Needles to say, we reached the final stage of the prize threshold, with a new prize pool of 270 $.

I want to thank everyone single one of you who supported the contest from the moment the announcement was made, spread the word about the contest so it would reach all corners, and of course to the participants, be those who qualified or in spirit entries. Thank you!

Unless any circumstance delays the judging process, which will be announced, we will see each other in a month when the results are out. Good luck to everyone!

Glad to partake!

Good luck to everyone! T'was a very fun contest, both as writer and reader

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my story done in time, however great job to all the participants, and I wish you luck.

Will we be getting feedback for our submissions? I was hoping to see how I could improve upon my writing / plotting in the future.

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If you add it in your story description (that you want to get feedback from the judges) you will get at least two guaranteed judge's comments, though we will try and cover as many fics as we can.

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Thanks, I’ll edit that right now!

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Yay this was fun! I’ve never written for a contest before, so this was special for me

Good luck to everyone who participated!

This was a fun contest to take part in. Good luck, everyone!

Glad I managed to finish my entry (and edit it down after I ran over the word limit) in time.
Looking forward to reading all the various entries and the eventual results
Congrats to everyone participating!

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Ooh good idea. I'm always eager for feedback to improve my writing

Sadly, I wasn't able to participate. But from what I've seen so far these stories look amazing, and it sounds like everyone had a lot of fun. Wishing everybody the best of luck with the judging!

Thank you for this contest, it was the final impulse I needed to finally write a story of my own , which was really fun, especially trying to hit a certain word limit.

Good luck to everyone participating and congrats for writing so many interesting stories .

Oh this was so much fun!!! Good luck to everyone 😃

I'm really glad that I finally written the story that I submitted for this contest. It's something I wanted to write anyway, but with this contest that just happened to be what I was already going for (A Secret Life), that helped me actually to write the story. Granted, a last minute submission and me only writing some days ago, with the bulk of the writing done on the last day, but it is done. Now let's see if I can write stories without being tied to contests.

It was difficult for me to participate, and I’m glad to have made it in time. It was good fun.