Independent publisher ChiZine Publications (CZP) has announced the results of its Enter The World of Filaria contest as well as the release of the previously unavailable preface to Filaria.
Richard Thomas’s “Maker of Flight” won first place in the contest, which sought stories under 1,000 words that take place in the setting of Filaria: a massive 32-level subterranean complex that is starting to break down with a location and origin only hinted at. Thomas’s story is a disquieting tale of what might be happening behind a closed door on the top level of the structure. As the first-place winner, his story will be published at ChiZine at the rate of 25 cents per word.
Second-place winner was Debi Carroll’s “Bonepickers,” and Donald Jacob Uitvlugt’s “Elevated State” took third place. Both stories will also be published on ChiZine.com and the authors will each receive a copy of one of ChiZine Publications’ other books: Horror Story and Other Horror Stories by Robert Boyczuk or The Tel Aviv Dossier by Lavie Tidhar & Nir Yaniv.
Due to the quality of other entries, judges Brent Hayward, author of Filaria, and Brett Alexander Savory, CZP’s Publisher and Editor of ChiZine, decided to award Honourable Mentions to “The Weather Up There” by D. Mona Miller and “A Crack in the Ceiling of the World” by Michael Kelly.
In addition to the winning stories, ChiZine will carry the previously unpublished preface to Filaria. Originally planning to bookend the novel with a preface and coda, while he was writing the novel, author Brent Hayward decided the four character/four chapters per character structure made for a stronger story. As a result, the coda and preface were not included in the published novel.
The preface, available exclusively at ChiZine.com, gives readers an insight into what started the sequence of events that caused the world of Filaria to fail. “The contest’s page at ChiZinePub.com said ‘Something has breached the sky, something has gotten in’,” says publisher and Bram Stoker Award-winner Brett Alexander Savory. “Let’s just say this preface sheds a bit more light on what that really means.”
The winning stories and preface will be published April 1st.
Filaria is currently available in trade paperback: Filaria /a>
