it turns out that getting all the reading done was the easy part, and finding a time when four grown adults are all free at the same time to nail down the results was more difficult than i had expected. so we're going to have to push the deadline back, sorry about that!

300 stories, and getting the reading done is the easy part? I’m not great at math, but 300 thousand-word stories equals 300,000 words, and that’s a lot.

7708557
I think the story count for the contest itself was closer to 100+...

7708569
. . .
It legit hadn’t occurred to me that stories might be in more than one folder.

Assuming that the submissions folder contains no duplicates, that’s 126 stories. Not as big a task, but still an impressive word count.

7708570
106, if I did the math right. (4 pages of 24 plus 10 on the 5th page.)

7708549
Solution! Have all future contests judged by children! (/joking if not clear)

Thank you for the warning!

7708570
If they are in more than one folder, clearly then, they must be read multiple times. (/joking if not clear).

Also, some of those 300 counted stories are in non-contest folders.