The postmark deadline isn't until October 16, 2006, but your judge assignment (and their address) comes with your entry form and can take a few weeks to get up here from New York.

If your manuscript fits the following plot guidelines, and you can come up with a US-to-Canada return stamp, send an SASE now.

Guidelines

• 1. Murder or another serious crime is at the heart of the story, and emphasis is on the solution rather than the details of the crime.
• 2. Whatever violence is necessarily involved should be neither excessive nor gratuitously detailed, nor is there to be explicit sex.
• 3. The crime is an extraordinary event in the lives of the characters.
• 4. The principal characters are people whom the reader might not like, but would be interested in knowing.
• 5. The suspects and the victims should know each other.
• 6. There are a limited number of suspects, each of whom has a credible motive and reasonable opportunity to have committed the crime.
• 7. The person who solves the crime is the central character.
• 8. The "detective" is an amateur, or, if a professional (private investigator, police officer) is not hardboiled and is as fully developed as the other characters.
• 9. The detective may find him or herself in serious peril, but he or she does not get beaten up to any serious extent.
• 10. All of the cast represent themselves as individuals, rather than large impersonal institutions like a national government, the Mafia, the CIA, etc.
  (The decision of the contest's judges as to whether or not a manuscript qualifies will be final.)

To request an application form & a copy of these rules, please send an SASE to:

Malice Domestic Contest/ St. Martin's Press
Thomas Dunne Books
175 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10010

For complete contest information, go to:

http://www.minotaurbooks.com/contests.html#malice

The 2006 CBC Literary Awards competition is now open and the deadline is November 1st, 2006.
The Awards are Canada's only literary competition celebrating original, unpublished works in both official languages. There are three categories:

• short story
• poetry
• creative nonfiction (includes memoir, biography, essay, personal essay, travel writing, humour writing, and feature articles)

Cash prizes totals $60,000, courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts, publication in Air Canada's enRoute magazine and broadcast on the airwaves of CBC Radio and La Première Chaîne de Radio-Canada.
www.cbc.ca/literaryawards