Rules for the contest are as follows:

• Theme - Romance (sweet, sentimental, both, or bittersweet)
• Story Length - any length.
• Characters - the romance must involve at least 1 character who is a TG, TV, TS, BI, Gay, Lesbian, or genderqueer (a challenging individual that shifts gender quite frequently)
• Character Age - Any age group, but ABSOLUTELY NONE of the stories are allowed to contain underage graphic sex! Underage is defined as anyone under the age of 16! However, kissing, cuddling, holding another in their arms is allowed in the underage Age group.
• Time period - any era, fantasy, sci-fi, any environment in which the author wishes to place her/his characters.
• Fiction - May be fiction or non-fiction.
• Type of Submission - can be a short story, a poem, a novel, a piece of any length. To enable fairness to everyone, No chapters of ongoing serials will be allowed. This is to level the playing field for all author entries and for the readers to decide. Any Universes may used as Fanfics for submission as well. The only restriction is that this work be a NEW writing and not already posted anywhere else prior to the starting date of this contest. This is for new works only, and as such, please do not use anything recycled from other sites.
• Contest Duration - 6 weeks - no extensions.
• Starting Date - 3:00am Eastern US time June 12, 2009
• Closing Date - 3:00am Eastern US time July 27, 2009.
• Marking Your Story - There will be a selection in the +fiction page under CONTESTS entitled "Summer Romance Story Contest 2009" to mark your story with. PLEASE CHECK TO ENSURE THAT YOU MARK YOUR ENTRY.
• Number of Submissions - Any author may submit any number of new entries that are validly marked in the contest box, but only one entry per author will be counted in the final totals, the one that gets the top number of votes from that author will be the one counted for purposes of determining winners.
• Voting Dates - Have yet to be determined as Erin will create the voting module as soon as the contest ends, and the Voting period will be for 1 week. Voting is limited to REGISTERED site users only.
• Tie-breaking - In the event of a Tie for any position, Erin, Sephrena, Edeyn and the involved winners will discuss a suitable resolution between the placed winners and/or issue additional prize monies. The results of the contest will be posted within 24 hours of the declared winners and all prize resolutions will be announced along with the winners.
• Prizes - 1st place - $75, 2nd place - $50, 3rd place - $25. All money prizes are awarded in US dollar value via money order mailed to the designated winners. (For our non North American registered users - if you have a paypal account and would like direct deposit of the award money through that, I can arrange to do that as well.)