FAQ

The deadline for entries into the SMOLDR Lake Covington Romance Writing contest is 11:59 PM, April 28, 2019. After that time, no NEW participants will be allowed and the entry link will disappear from Submittable. However, we will allow a one-month grace period for all EXISTING participants in the contest to turn in their stories, which means we will need all Lake Covington stories no later than 11:59 PM, May 28, 2019.

We understand that it’s going to be fun getting lost in the world of Lake Covington, but since you only have 5000-words we suggest you keep all other locations and characters to a minimum and really focus on your assigned profiles. Also, keep in mind that other writers have been assigned those characters, so be careful about how much detail you want to include about them. If we had one piece of advice, we’d say that less is more.

While it may be exciting to hop on a plane at the Covington Airport and fly off to Paris or the Bahama’s for a romantic get-away, we would like your assigned couple to remain in the town of Lake Covington.

Your story doesn’t have to remain solely in your assigned location, but we do want it to be a prime location that is recognizable and important to the plot.

You are more than welcome to reference our elusive Lady of the Lake but please do not make her a character. We want to keep everything in Lake Covington somewhat contemporary. We are definitely open to paranormal romance down the road perhaps with another contest or even an off-shoot novel of Lake Covington.

Please refrain from changing your assigned character names.

You are more than welcome to include whatever ethnicity/culture you’d like. We did not specify certain ethnicities/cultures to give as much creative control as possible to our contest submitters.

Love knows no bounds and that holds true in Lake Covington. We have couple profiles set aside specially for the LGBTQIA community. When signing up for the contest, there is a box to check if you are interested in gender neutral character profiles.

Of course. You put a lot of time into your story and you are more than welcome to send it to other publications or publish it online on a blog.

The small fee to enter will help offset prize winnings, print costs for the anthology, and advertising so that we can make sure readers will know about our awesome Lake Covington writers.

There will be 18 winning stories. Of those, we will have three overall winners who will receive a cash prize. First place $500. Second place $250. Third place $100.

1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will be decided American Idol style and be chosen by popular vote! Readers of the Lake Covington Anthology will get the opportunity to go onto our website and vote for their favorite Lake Covington couple. Judging will close one month post the publication date (March 14, 2020) and the contest winners will be announced.

Unfortunately, we will not able to offer personalized rejections.

We are looking for great stories AND great writing. A story with great writing is always going to stand out over a submission with the makings of a great story, but in need of a serious edit. Get help from a critique group before submitting or get some trusted readers to look over your story.

We are not interested in material with gratuitous language, sex, or violence or material that seeks to harm, endanger, or threaten any person or persons. That being said, we are looking for romance stories in line with the genre. We are not interested in contest submissions that are erotica.

All contest submissions should be formatted with 1-inch margins, double spaced, and in Times New Roman. Please provide a cover page that includes the title of your story, your couple names, trope, and assigned location. Make sure to save your file with the name of your trope first and then your last name. For example: MeetCute.Robinson

You have 5,000 words. Anything over 5,000 will automatically be disqualified, even if it is only by one word.

We are excited to offer Lake Covington’s anthology in both print and as an e-book.

Only one contest entry per person is allowed. We love your enthusiasm though.

Nice try, but we are keeping accurate records of our contest submitters. If we didn't get your name from Submittable, then your entry will be disregarded.

Please send your contest submission as an email attachment to submit[at]smoldr.org. Your email header should be the title of your submission and your last name. The body of your email should have the title, your name, your couple, trope, and location.

Yes. You are able to download a copy of the contract for review by Clicking Here. Please note that this is a sample contract. While 99% of it will remain as written, the contracts will be individualized for the writers whose work we will publish.