I'm sponsoring a writing contest for the Steam Gifts community. I will be the judge (so expect my biases), and the contest will close Friday, <s>April 25th</s> May 9. The rules for the contest are:

At least 500 words per entry to qualify. No length limit, but the distinction between short and long for this contest is 3000 words. There is no particular genre requirement.

One entry per person. You may submit one shorter work and one longer work if you want twice the chances to win, but unless it's good, don't expect anything.

I will be looking for good grammar and spelling, and also that you don't just copy paste someone else's work. In addition, try not to just summarize or copy someone else's story. While your work can be referential, parody, etc., I value some degree of original work and thought.

The restrictions:
English language. I don't have high enough reading comprehension in any other language to weigh those entries properly, and Google Translate would not be your friend in the grammar category.
No erotica; adult elements are fine, but if your work is just smut, I'm not interested.
Preferably no fan-fiction, though if it's done well, I guess I'll consider it.
You may use works that you've written before, but remember to format them properly. For the sake of keeping the thread clean, I will not judge submissions that are simply posted in as text to the thread.

How to submit:

Make a clickable link to a Google Document, which is viewable with the link, or share the document with me using the address "squirezed@gmail.com". You can do this whenever you want, but remember that I will be judging the works based on how they are over the weekend following April 25th or shortly later.

LEGAL

This is not to get rights to your works so I can republish them. There are no contracts, you keep your work, I'm just interested in seeing it. I don't want to publish it (though I will contact the winners about links here if they do not post public links) or make money from it, and all rights will remain with the author. Thanks to schalart, for pointing this out. That said, your submissions should still be your original works which you own distribution rights for. Legalese is hard, so unless you are the original author of an otherwise unpublished work, please do not submit the work. If your place of residence doesn't let you win contests, tough. Not my responsibility to guarantee that you won't get in trouble. I live in the US, and I will not circumvent region locks to get you your prizes should you win.

Feel free to contact me at the email address above or via Steam message or any other arcane way you devise to contact me for clarification. I will try to respond to questions posted in this thread.

I will give away at least three prizes, to be decided/announced based on participation and people's requests. They are likely to be similar in size to the prizes from the previous contest, but perhaps a bit more numerous.

Link to previous contest: Writing Contest

Winners have been contacted, and those without usernames provided will be contacted shortly via email.

Winners (in progress):
peshmi
jbondguy007
liftir