Hoodyhoo!

I am pleased to announce that two stories published at Southern Gothic in 2007 have been recognized as Notable Stories by the storySouth Million Writer's Award.

They are:

The Tennessee Scrambler by Stephen Roger Powers
MisLiza was Soothsaid by Lucious Vaughn

In late May or early June, Jason Sanford will select the Top Ten stories from the list of Notables. Then, readers will have the chance to vote for the best story published online in 2007.

Last year, Mark MacNamara's story Vertically Divided, Blue-Red-White made the Top Ten list and ultimately finished tied for 5th place in the reader poll. I hope that we can at least repeat that performance this year, and maybe even better it! Certainly, both of Stephen's and Lucious' stories deserve to make the Top Ten, but then again, I am rather prejudiced toward them.

As a side note, a novella written by your humble editor was also recognized as a Notable Story. Ananke was published in 2007 at Theaker's Quarterly.

Full Disclosure: I was once again honored to serve as a preliminary judge for the Million Writers Award. However, I did not know who the other judges were at the time I made my selections, nor was I allowed to choose stories from Southern Gothic or any of my own published stories. Not that I would have. Jason Sanford takes great care not to prevent any conflicts of interest or even the appearance of conflicts of interest which could jeopardize the credibility of the contest. And if you don't know Jason, he edits storySouth, which is a damn good online literary magazine.