Hey Visionaries! This post has been a long time coming, sorry for the wait, but things have been so busy for me lately.
If you're new back in February, we announced a short story contest with the theme of hope/light over the darkness, the winning stories would be featured in Illuminate the Dark - Stories of Light over Darkness, an anthology curated by yours truly with all the profits going into keeping this site up and running!
The contest closed in May and I finished contacting all the authors last week. It wasn't so much the volume of submissions that made the delay but just a lot going on...lol...
Anyway, are you ready to learn who's in the anthology?
(Also, if you submitted but did not receive an email either way, please reach out to me because that means your submission did not come through. I'd love to read over your submission and potentially add you to the collection because I would hate for you not to be included simply because Google Forms was misbehaving.)
Here are the authors and titles of their submissions in no particular order...lol...
Illuminate the Dark Stories & Authors!
Kylie Beevers - Hail the Fire - A Poem
Zoe Gilbert - Lady Love - A Poem
Jaiden Phillips - Fate of a Villain - A short story
Lillian Keith - On the Edge of Dawn - A short story
Lori Ann Nelson - Fire Feathers to Home - A short story
Sara Noelle Swenson - Crying Upwards - A short story
Emma G. McKee - The White Stag - A short story
Norah Case - The Weaver, the Walkers, and the Weakling - A short story
Abigail Hathaway - Shatter the Dark - A short story
Bree Pembrook - Coins in the Fountain - A short story
Emily Waldorf - Only You - A short story
Abby Burrus - To Grasp Glory - A short story
Kaytlin Phillips - Poisoned Throne - A short story
I was going to summarize each story briefly but realized that I read all these a month or more ago and have slept since then...lol...I promise I remember what they are about I'm just having difficulty forming it into words today. Each story is a beautiful example of light over darkness, or hope even in the face of hopelessness, and I cannot wait to share this collection with everyone!
Are you excited about Illuminate the Dark? What's your favorite title? Also, pick a title and guess what the story is about, because I think that'd be fun! (Obviously, if you're an author, don't pick your own story. wink)
Eeee, yay!!! 🥳🥳🥳 I can’t wait to read all the stories—and it’s still so amazing, thinking mine is listed too! 😅🥹🤭 Congratulations to everyone!!! 🤗🥰
So exciting! It's really hard to choose a favorite title because they're all so good! Ones that especially intrigued me are Crying Upwards, Coins in the Fountain, the White Stag.
So, I guess "Coins in the Fountain" is about a young girl (or boy) with a tragic past, trapped by a kingdom with a great decision ahead of her/him.
Awesome!! To me the most intriguing titles are Coins in the Fountain and Poisoned Throne. But all of them sound amazing! <3
Wow, this line-up looks so great! Can't wait to read all the stories and poems.
I hate to be that person... But my story title isn't To Grasp Hope, it's To Grasp Glory. Although To Grasp Hope wouldn't be a bad title for it either, lol. But eeee, I'm so excited to see the titles of these stories and their authors-! They all sound awesome <3