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Update November 18, 2018 - Done

We have a winner!


The full result and all the stories from the short-list can be found on our Winners page. Just click here

Our first issue will feature all the stories on the short-list, together with all deserving long-listed stories. The relevant writers will all be contacted by e-mail.

After that we shall go through all the entries that were not eligible for the contest but still deserving of publication. Their writers will be contacted for publication on our special "Assorted Writings" page, which will go online late November/early December.

If the reception of the magazine warrants this, we intend to repeat the contest, with exactly the same theme, "The End of Our World 2.0", because we feel that many story-telling opportunities were left untouched. Details will follow on the website and our Facebook page.

This is the 2018 short-list of "The End of Our World" short story contest (in alphabetical order):

A Letter to my Unborn Child Alana Faller
Because They Could Steven J. Schreiner
Caldera Nick Korolev
Hyena Raiders Jerome Newsome
Rock-a-bye Baby Daphne Olivier
The Nature Museum Jonny K. Walker
The Pool Kit Davis
The Pupfish of Miracle Spring Joseph G Follansbee
Two Days Emily Garbutt
Zomer in Friesland Janna van der Meer







Throughout history doomsayers predicting the end of the world have always been met with howls of derisive laughter. Rightly so, because most of them were buffoons whose predictions were based on weird and implausible sources. So far they have all been completely wrong. But, alas, those days are behind us. Contemporary warnings of impending doom, the rapidly approaching end of our overdeveloped and unsustainable world, are based on reality and science, on cold, hard facts, matters of projection rather than prediction. And we are already seeing the end beginning. The signs are everywhere: environmentally and socially (check our fact sheet for details). We are going down, and most of us know, perhaps not consciously, not clearly spelled out, but we know, deep inside, that we are going down, in spite of all the comforting lies told by those who are profiting from our downfall and want us to go meekly.

This contest was meant to raise people's awareness of what is happening to our (natural) world right now and what this may mean for the near future. We were looking for short stories dealing with the many existential issues facing us. No nonsense, no wild, impossible fantasies but strong, intelligent stories, based on facts, cautionary tales, speculative, plausible and thought-provoking. The stories on this list most definitely meet those criteria .

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