The organizers of the national meeting of fantasy lovers

"Bulgacon 2025" announce

A FANTASTIC STORY COMPETITION

on the theme

"The Bright Future We All Dream of"

with the sub-theme "The Fantastic Pazardzhik"

CONTEST CONDITIONS

1. Send your stories to: bulgaconkonkurs @ gmail . com.

2. Deadline for receiving stories: July 15, 2025, 11:59 p.m. Bulgarian time.

3. Theme and sub-theme of the competition: "The Bright Future We All Dream of" with the sub-theme "The Fantastic Pazardzhik".

Priority in the evaluation will be given to works in which the theme and/or sub-theme are important for the narrative, but all fantasy works that meet the other conditions of the competition will be allowed to participate.

4. Language: Bulgarian; alphabet: Cyrillic (up to 1/3 of the text can be in other languages ​​in the form of quotes or dialogue).

5. Length of stories: between 1500 and 3000 words (according to the word counter of Microsoft Word or Libre Office).

6. File format: doc, docx, odt or rtf. It is recommended that the font be Times New Roman or Courier, size 12.

7. Number of works: Participation with one work per author is allowed. A story written in co-authorship is considered one participation of all co-authors.

8. Additional requirements: Participating works must be original, unpublished in any form (neither as a text on paper or on the Internet, nor as audio/video). Stories that have won other competitions, even if they have not been published, are not allowed.

9. The members of the jury, as well as anyone involved in the organization and coordination of the competition, are not allowed to participate in the competition with their own works.

10. All subgenres of fantastic literary art are acceptable.

11. Content of the email sent to participate in the competition:

a) title of the email: “For the BULGACON 2025 Short Story Competition”;

b) body of the email (on separate lines):

– title of the work;

– full names of the author(s);

– contact email;

– city or town;

– exact address;

– telephone.

c) attached file: it must be in one of the permitted formats (doc, docx, odt or rtf) and must contain only the title and text of the work. Including personal data in the attached file leads to disqualification.

12. The specified requirements (including with regard to the anonymity of the stories) should be observed by the participants until the results are announced.

Stories and participants that do not meet the above mandatory conditions are not allowed to participate in the final ranking.

Evaluation of the works: The competition is anonymous; reading and evaluation are carried out by a jury. The members of the jury will only have access to the titles and texts of the works, sent to them by an administrator, who will be the only one who will have access to the personal data of the participants. The literary and ideological qualities of the works are evaluated. The ranking is carried out according to the overall scores obtained by taking into account the individual scores of all members of the jury. By mutual agreement of the members of the jury, it is allowed to distinguish works outside the prize fund of the competition.

Publications of the works: The authors retain the exclusive rights to their works. By sending the works, the authors agree to grant the organizers of "Bulgacon 2025" the rights for a one-time publication in a collection (electronic and/or paper) or in the magazine "Terra Fantasia". Other publications of the works, for example as an audio podcast, will be made only with the permission of the authors.

Competition results: The titles of the awarded and distinguished works will be announced during "Bulgacon 2025" (06–08.09.2025, Pazardzhik).

Prize fund: Three cash prizes will be awarded for the stories awarded by the jury, as follows:

– first prize – 300 BGN;

– second prize – 200 BGN;

– third prize – 100 BGN.

It is permissible not to award a prize/s if, in the opinion of the jury, none of those admitted to the competition received a sufficiently high score.

We wish all participants success and look forward to reading your works!

The competition is held with the support of the Youth Center – Pazardzhik.