Festival of Fiction 2004

New Address

2006-03-03T00:07:18Z

The Festival of Fiction has moved!

FoF's new address is http://aliasfof.poohmusings.com. While the old address of aliasfof.com still works, it'll expire in about a month, so please update your bookmarks to the new address. Thanks.

FOF 2005

2005-06-30T23:50:51Z

It just occurred to me that, hey, some people are actually curious if there'll be a FOF 2005 and that, hey, maybe I should make an announcement about that. Yeah, I can be real fast at times. *facepalm*

Anyway, due to RL hecticness, the judges are sad to announce that there will not be a FOF 2005. Thanks for the support you've given the awards program in the past. Take care and have a great summer.

FOF 2004 statistics

2004-08-10T21:46:14Z

I know there was some interest in this, so here are some basic stats from this year's FOF in terms of number of votes received, etc. (FYI: The numbers provided below refer to Final Round Voting ONLY. I do have the numbers crunched for First Round Voting, but since people could vote for as many stories in a subcategory as they wanted to, I was afraid the numbers from R1 might be misconstrued/misleading.)

In the Final Round ...

- A total of 658 voting forms were cast: 131 Author, 133 Characterization, 129 Genre, 129 Length, and 136 Romance.
- The number of individual votes cast in a subcategory ranged from 62 (Slash) to 123 (AU).
- A total of 2,859 votes were cast across all the subcategories.

Thanks again for everyone's participation.

2004 winners

2004-08-03T23:06:37Z

The FOF 2004 winners may now be found here.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!

Thank you to all who participated in FOF 2004 by reading, nominating, and voting for Alias fanfiction that blew you away in the past year.

And thus endth another year of FOF.

ETA: Honorable Mentions were awarded to any fourth place story that scored one point or less than the third place story.

last call

2004-07-29T16:04:52Z

There are exactly 12 hours left to vote in this year's FOF. If you haven't already cast your votes but would like to, you may access the voting forms by going here, and a list of the finalists may be found here.

Final Round Voting closes at 12 midnight EST tonight. Winners will be announced around August 2/3.

Thanks.

zooooom

2004-07-23T00:03:36Z

Hello. One more week left in Final Round Voting. Please get all your votes in by next Thursday, July 29th, at 12 midnight EST. Forms are located here, and the lists of finalists are located here. Any questions should be sent here. Thanks!

Final Round Voting Forms are now available

2004-07-13T16:14:49Z

The final round forms are now open for business. You may access them by going here.

The forms are easier to use this go-around. Each finalist has a button next to its title/author, and you simply click on the button next to the title/author you wish to vote for.

If you have any questions, please send them to judges@aliasfof.com.

All votes must be in by 12 midnight EST of July 29th.

Thanks.

FOF 2004 Finalists

2004-07-10T06:14:27Z

Well, it's still the 9th where I am. :)

This year's finalists are now up: http://www.aliasfof.com/2004/04finalists.html.

Congrats to the finalists. Thanks to all those who took the time to read the many nominees and vote.

The final round voting forms will be posted on July 13th at 12 noon EST.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to email the judges.

last call for R1 votes

2004-07-08T19:06:10Z

According to my watch, there are 9 hours and 3 minutes left in the Round 1 Voting period. Please cast your votes if you haven't already. All R1 votes MUST be in by tonight at 12 midnight EST. Any votes cast after then will not be counted.

I've noticed that there have been several votes cast for stories that were never nominated during the open nominations period. FOF does not utilize write-in voting. Lists of stories that were nominated and therefore eligible to be voted upon may be found here. Click on the different subcategories to see all the nominated stories. If someone persists in submitting ballots with write-in votes, I will assume he/she is attempting to spam the judges. Spamming the judges via the voting forms is not tolerated and will drive me to ban the offender from the site. Obviously, this is something I do not want to do.

I hope to be able to announce the finalists by tomorrow (Friday) night.

Okay, now my watch says there's only 8 hours and 56 minutes left to vote. :)

Cover Me links, last week of R1 voting

2004-07-02T17:51:08Z

Due to the recent unveiling of the brand-spanking new Cover Me layout -- whoo-ee, check out all the new newness :) -- stories archived there have new links.

I've now gone through all the FOF categories and changed, I believe, all the appropriate links so that you're directly routed to the story rather than the CM home page. If you notice any CM links that are not taking you to the story directly, then please let me know by sending an email to judges@aliasfof.com. I tried to catch all the CM links, but after you've stared at HTML code for long enough, everything begins to run together. ;)

Also, rez_lo has inadvertantly brought to my attention that Round 1 Voting ending on THURSDAY, JULY 8, AT 12 MIDNIGHT EST. (Don't ask me why I thought there were still two more weeks left in voting. Heh.) That means you now have less than a week to get in all your R1 votes. The voting forms may be found here.

Don't forget that everyone may only submit each form ONCE. If you send in duplicates of the same form, then your votes will invalidate each other. If you can't remember whether or not you've already submitted a specific form, then please email the judges and ask which forms you have submitted before potentially sending in a duplicate form and invalidating your votes.

For those who reside in the U.S., enjoy your three-day weekend. For those who reside elsewhere, have a fab weekend. For those attending the Alias Con this weekend, just plain have fun. :)

history lesson, thank yous

2004-06-23T22:55:21Z

We're now into Day 3 of Round One Voting and there are several announcements that must be made. But, first, allow me to state quickly why FOF was developed in the first place.

Back in 2002, the year FOF was conceived and conducted for the first time, the Alias fandom was relatively small. But new people were joining and reveling in fantastic Alias fanfic every day, so the FOF was developed to recognize some of the wonderful stories that had been written. We've always believed that the high quality of writing in the Alias fandom deserved to be rewarded and highlighted. This is why FOF is conducted the way it is.

Those of us behind FOF have never been very keen on laying down hard rules as we like to believe that people will inherently know right versus wrong. This is why we originally never had written rules regarding how people shouldn't cheat, and why we don't have any written rules regarding campaigning. We just assumed (and continue to assume with regards to campaigning for votes) that people would know that both go against the spirit of FOF. We hope people will try to adhere to the spirit of FOF as we go through the two rounds of voting.

Now, with that out of the way, below is a list of 'thank you's that was written by rez_lo, a 2004 FOF judge. She has graciously allowed me to repost it here as it encompasses the feelings all the FOF Judges are currently feeling:

To the readers who created the nomination lists for this year’s FoF: Thank you. Your enthusiasm is the engine that keeps a large part of the fandom running.

To the writers whose work was nominated for this year’s FoF: Congratulations and thank you. It makes me happy to see how many of you there are and how much new writing has been done in the past year, of which the nominated stories represent only a lucky fraction.

To those whose stories weren’t nominated: Please keep writing. I feel this more strongly than I can say: please, keep writing. Awards are nice but they aren’t everything, or even anything much, in the grand scheme of writerly achievement. That’s not hypocrisy, it’s both pragmatism and a heartfelt plea from a hungry reader. Please. Keep. Writing.

To the writers who nominated their own stories: Good for you. You’re serious enough about your work that you honestly want to know how it ranks against strong competition.

To those writers who notified the judges that their nominated, validated stories were, in fact, ineligible for one reason or another: it’s an honor to know you. I wish I could name names here because you deserve recognition for your honesty alone.

To everyone who’s taking the time to read—or at least sample—the whole field of FoF nominees before voting: Thank you. It’s time-consuming but it’s what matters: reading new work, perhaps by unfamiliar writers and in categories that cross or transcend your personal preferences, and honoring the very best, according to your lights.

To all the nominated writers who don’t solicit votes, don’t send coy notes to their mailing lists, who in fact step back and shut up and let their work speak for itself: You have my deep respect and my attention.

The FoF isn’t a student council election; it’s not about who’s got the cleverest organizing tactics or the most friends. It’s about sitting down and clicking that link until you’ve given every story a fair chance to convince you it deserves to move up—or not.

But nobody has to do anything. Integrity’s only one of the choices available. The corollary to that is: the fandom ultimately gets what it deserves.

Best of luck to everyone, voters and nominees and onlookers, who’ll all be drawing conclusions about us based on the choices we individually and collectively make.

Thank you.

Let the voting begin

2004-06-21T19:58:57Z

Well, some of you quickies beat me to the announcement (*g*), but FOF 2004's Round 1 Voting Forms are now available for use on the Voting Forms page.

PLEASE read all the instructions carefully before completing and sending in any forms. And if you have questions regarding how R1 voting works, then please email the FOF judges BEFORE sending in any votes.

Thanks!

update on the run

2004-06-18T00:07:29Z

A quick FOF update to close out the week:

Round 1 Voting Forms will be posted on Monday, June 21st, around 8:30 a.m. PST.

Due to the number of nominations received in the 'Outstanding Supporting Character Characterization' and 'Outstanding Other Pairing Romance' categories, we've opened up 3 new categories for the voting rounds. They are 'Outstanding Weiss Characterization', 'Outstanding Lauren Characterization', and 'Outstanding Sydney/Weiss Romance'. The nominee lists have already been broken out to show these three new categories.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to drop the judges a line at judges@aliasfof.com.

Updated nominations and Round 1 voting forms

2004-06-14T21:02:56Z

Apparently I jumped the gun yesterday when I said all eligible nominations had been posted to the site. We've made a few more additions and the lists should now be final. (Of course, we reserve the right to make additions and deletions as necessary. *g*)

Also, details regarding Round 1 Voting have been posted to the site. Here's a direct link: http://www.aliasfof.com/2004/voteforms.html.

Thanks again for all of everyone's nominations.

All nominees are now up.

2004-06-13T20:02:53Z

We have verified all nominations and all eligible nominations (806 in total!) are now up on the site. (WIPs have also been reverified and those that were completed during the nomination period have been moved into the appropriate completed length category.)

If you are an author of a nominated story and wish to provide us with a different link to your story, please send an email to judges@aliasfof.com with the title of your story and the categories in which it has been nominated.

Thanks!

The Open Nominations Period is now CLOSED.

2004-06-11T22:48:20Z

Thanks to all who took the time to send in nominations, and congrats to all who have been nominated.

Nominations are still being verified by FOF judges, but all eligible nominations should be up by the end of June 13th.

The following categories have verified all nominations and are now fully up-to-date with all eligible nominations:

- Sydney Characterization
- Sark Characterization
- Jack Characterization
- Supporting Character Characterization
- Original Chracter Characterization
- Angst
- AU
- Humor
- Mission
- Post-Ep/Missing Scene
- Short Length
- Mid-Length
- Long Length
- Novel Length
- Series
- NC-17
- UST
- Slash
- Sydney/Sark Romance
- Jack/Irina Romance

If a story you nominated is not up on the site, then that is probably because of one of the following reasons:

1. The story is not complete (remember: the only category in which incomplete stories are eligible is the WIP category).
2. The story was not written during the eligibility time period of this year's FOF.
3. We were asked by the author to remove the story from contention.
4. We were provided with a broken link and were unable to replace it with a working one.

Instructions pertaining to how Round 1 Voting will run will be up on the site by noon of June 14th.

Happy reading! :)

forms are back up

2004-06-10T19:42:38Z

The problem with the nomination forms has been fixed and we're back on schedule.

All nominations MUST be in by TONIGHT at 12 MIDNIGHT EST.

Thanks.

ETA: It's come to my attention that many people have been attempting to nominate Karenml (aka Camille)'s fic "Seriously?" for various categories and have been unhappy with the judges' decision that the story is ineligible. While I and the other judges are happy (and honored) that you'd like the story to be a part of this year's FOF, we're afraid that we cannot allow that to happen as the story already competed in last year's FOF in several categories.

We understand that Karenml has since added additional scenes and chapters to the story, but it is still essentially the same story that competed last year. As rez_lo has so appropriately pointed out, allowing this revised version of "Seriously?" to compete in FOF 2004 would be like the Academy allowing the extended version of LotR: The Return of the King to compete in next year's Oscars.

Since "Seriously?" v. 2004 is ineligible for FOF 2004, how about sending Karenml some feedback instead? I'm sure she'd love and appreciate that.

Thanks so much, everyone.

nomination forms are down

2004-06-10T18:59:22Z

I'm sorry about this inconvenience but the FOF nomination forms are currently down. We, the judges, did not foresee this occurring, and have already contacted Bravehost to rectify the situation.

We'll keep you posted ...

Thanks for your patience.

Don't know if anyone can help me out...

2004-06-10T02:06:58Z

I'm having trouble finding somewhere this fic is posted that I can verify the date...I've tried ff.net and sd-1, among others, with no luck so far. The story is "Til I Am Myself Again" by CanadianAliasFan, and the url provided is . If anyone knows anything about this fic, and could help me out, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

one down, three to go

2004-05-24T23:15:39Z

Well, the first week of open nominations is now over and we've been receiving plenty of nominations, which is fantastic. But a truly successful FOF is one that's heavy on the nominations (to ensure all award-worthy stories have a chance to be recognized), so please continue submitting those nomination forms. I'd also like to take this opportunity to highlight a few important eligibility/nomination issues:

1. To be eligible for FOF 2004, a story MUST have been written/posted between June 13, 2003 and June 10, 2004. If a story was started BEFORE June 13, 2003, but was then completed between June 13, 2003 and June 10, 2004, then it is still eligible.

2. Except for stories nominated in the WIP category, all other nominated stories MUST be complete.

3. A series of stories that are nominated in the Series categories must ALL be complete to be eligible.

4. A story only needs one nomination to "move on" to the voting rounds. So please do not "renominate" stories that have already been nominated.

5. Nominations are updated daily, so please check the site to see which stories have been nominated thus far.

6. The Outstanding Post-Ep category has now been expanded to Outstanding Post-Ep/Missing Scene.

7. If you have any questions regarding a story's eligibility, please email the judges BEFORE nominating the story.

Thanks, everyone, and happy FOFing. :)

Send in your nominations today!

2004-05-17T22:53:06Z

As I'm sure everyone is aware, FOF 2004 is officially underway. We have begun accepting nominations in all categories. Once nominations have been verified regarding their elibility, they will be listed on the site in the categories for which they have been nominated. And since one nomination is all it takes to have a story considered for a particular category, please do not renominate a story if you see it has already been nominated in the category you wish for it to be considered. Thanks!

And as always, if you have any questions, feel free to drop us a line at judges@aliasfof.com.

Happy nominating, everyone. :)

new for 2004

2004-05-11T23:05:03Z

Well, open nominations for FOF 2004 is almost here. :)

Beginning Monday, May 17th, you may begin submitting nominations. This year, in an attempt to simplify the nominating and voting processes, we've decided to utilize email forms. To see how this will work for open nominations, please go here. As you'll see when you follow the link, there are five nomination forms. Feel free to click on the form links so you can familiarize yourself with the forms' layout. Just DO NOT submit any forms until Monday.

Here are some quick FOF links for you:

- FOF 2004 home page
- FOF 2004 categories
- FOF 2004 schedule
- FOF 2004 nomination forms
- FOF FAQs

If you have any questions, feel free to drop the judges a line at judges@aliasfof.com.

cute as a button

2004-04-05T23:24:08Z

And now FOF 2004 has buttons and icons you can snag for linking back/pimping use. Mucho thanks to kudosandhuzzah for creating them. (And I hear there may be more to come. *g*)

Feel free to grab as many graphics as you'd like. If you're using them to link back to the site, please make sure you link to the main index page rather than one of the other pages. And please save any buttons/icons you plan on using to your own server. Hotlinking to the graphics that are currently saved on my server makes the baby jesus cry and Karen very, very crabby. (Plus, hotlinking eats up precious bandwidth and could lead to a crashing of the site, which would be BAD.)

Thanks!

Welcome!

2004-04-01T22:50:25Z

Welcome to the Festival of Fiction's livejournal.

Here you will find the latest information regarding what's going on with FOF 2004. And any late-breaking announcements will always be made here first.

At the moment, FOF 2004 is just resting until the open nominations period begins May 17th. So, while you're waiting, why don't you sit back and check out the website?

We'll be back in May ... :)