For the period from January 1, 2013 and continuing through December 31, 2013, all EG entries, artwork (including pictures, cartoons, videos, music, etc.), and stories appearing on the Orion's Arm website or in Voices:Future Tense, the OA ezine, are be eligible for consideration for the 2013 Best of the Year Awards.

Winning entries will be determined by vote of the OA membership, and First,Second, and Third Place prizes will be awarded in each category (EG entry,artwork, or story). Prizes will consist of:

First Place = $25 (USD)

Second Place = $15 (USD)

Third Place = $5 (USD)

How It Will Work: All EG entries, stories, and artwork appearing on the OA website, or in V:FT during the course of 2013 are automatically eligible for consideration. In the second quarter of 2014, a survey will be sent to all members of the Orion's Arm Universe Project (Defined here as those individuals who are members in good standing* of the OA online discussion forum as of the time the survey is completed). Members will be asked to vote for their favorite EG entry, story, and artwork from a list of works submitted by the creators of these works . The item in each category with the most votes will win First Place, the item with the next largest number of votes will win Second Place, and so on.

Winning items in each category will be announced on the OA forum, in the next issue of Voices:Future Tense published after the vote, and on the OA Facebook and Twitter pages. Payments to the creators of the winning entries will be sent within 60 days of the announcement of the winners on the OA forum.

How Entries Will Be Gathered: Candidate award entries (EG entries, artwork, stories, etc. added to the project in 2013) will be provided by their creators (or those who wish to nominate/submit a work(s) on behalf of a creator), who may submit up to three entries in each category. Entries should be submitted in the form of links to the relevant EG entry, artwork location, or V:FT issue via the Voices: Future Tense Submissions sub-forum on the OA discussion forum. Submissions should include the appropriate header format in the Title field when being posted. See example below:

Header format: BOTY13 - (Category - EG/Story/Art/Other) - Submission # (1-3)


Header example: BOTY13 - EG - Submission 1


All entries should be submitted by 11:59pm EST on Friday, May 16th, 2014.


How Voting Will Take Place: The OAUP will use an online survey tool to contact each member of the project and ask them to vote on their favorite item in each category (EG entry, story,and artwork). Survey tool functionality will be used to provide a link to the survey via the OA forum and to prevent non-members from taking part in the vote. Voting will be open for a limited period of time, after which the survey will be closed and the votes tallied (additional details will be provided before and during the voting period).

How the Winners Will Be Paid: Creators of the winning items in each category will preferentially be paid via PayPal. In the event that someone cannot/prefers not to use PayPal to receive payment, other arrangements will be made in consultation with the individual and the Treasurer of the OAUP Managing Board. Payments will be dispersed by the Treasurer or their designee.

Additional Rules and Information: Contest Works: Works submitted for participation in OAUP sponsored contests (writing, artwork, etc.) are not eligible for consideration for the Best of the Year Award until the completion of the contest they are submitted for. Upon becoming eligible for consideration, contest works may be submitted by their creator, either via a link or as an attachment to the entry post submitted for them.

Maintaining Contact Information: It is solely the responsibility of all creators of award eligible content to maintain current and accurate contact information on file with the OAUP through whatever medium of record the OAUP dictates. Until further notice, the medium of record consists of the email addresses associated with the user lists automatically maintained by the OAUP discussion lists currently provided by Yahoo.com. The OAUP is in no way responsible or liable for maintenance of creator contact information and reserves the right to change the medium of record at any time and as it sees fit.

In the event that the creator(s) of an award winning content piece cannot be contacted by the OAUP due to out-of-date, inaccurate, missing,or no longer active contact information, the award monies will be held by the OAUP for a period not longer than six months from the date the award winners are announced. At the end of this period, any monies still unawarded will be considered to be forfeited by the content creator(s) and shall revert back to the OAUP.

In the event that an award winning work is the product of multiple authors, of which some cannot be contacted due to out-of-date, inaccurate, missing, or no longer active contact information, award monies will be divided per the guidelines for Multiple Creator Works. Award monies earmarked for creators who cannot be contacted for the reasons above will be handled in accordance with the rules presented above regarding Maintaining Contact Information.

Taxes: Each creator is responsible for paying his/her own taxes on any payments received from the OAUP and is advised to keep accurate tax records.

Multiple Winning Entries: Creators may have winning entries in multiple categories (EG entries, artwork, and stories) in a single contest period. However creators may not have multiple winning entries within a single category. In the event that a creator wins more than once in a single category, the winning entry for the highest prize will 'get the win' and the entry from someone else with the next highest number of votes in the category will win the next prize down and so on. The logistics of these situations will be handled by the managing board.

Example: if someone wins both first and third prize, they win first prize and whoever came in fourth wins third prize.

*Membership in Good Standing: Membership in Good Standing is here defined as maintaining a membership on the OAUP discussion forum, including the maintenance of current, accurate, and active contact information as defined by the OAUP. In the event a member terminates their membership on the OAUP discussion forum, or has their membership terminated by Moderator action, they are automatically disqualified from receiving Best of the Year award prize monies, whether for current or future BOTY events, until and unless the renewal of their membership in good standing is approved by a vote of the OAUP Managing Board.