03.02.2010
Spring is coming - you know what that means. Animals come out of hibernation, plants turn green, and 'Nella's Spring cycle is about to begin! As you may (or may not) have noticed, the dates for Cycle 2 were pushed back by a week because I will be in Florida during the week of the 15th. *excited* Any Floridians (is that the right term?) here?
Or course, to get the cycle running, we need judges. I'm a bit disappointed by the amount of judge applications I've received so far because at this rate, we might not end up having a cycle 2. I'm extending the judge application deadline to March 10th (a week from now) for any of you last minute procrastinators.
The new contest is up! Click on the 'contest' page to view it. I was personally quite amused by it so I hope you will find it to be a fun prompt. Speaking of contests, time to announce last month's (February's) contest winner! Congratulations to Narq who won the February contest with the one-shot Roses and Petals. Please be sure to check it out!
02.09.2010
My apologies, everybody! This update is over a week late and I'm so sorry for keeping you all waiting.
Anyway, a few updates. Firstly, the judge application is up! All judge applications are to be submitted by March 8th, 2010 - which gives everybody about a month to work on them. I am also looking for Graphics Artists. :)
I will be postponing Cycle 2 of Campanella down a week as I will be out on vacation on the week of March 15th. To anybody who's wondering - yes, I am still accepting suggestions for Cycle 2 categories. You can make them on the cbox or email them to me. :)
Lastly, the contest prompt is up! I was originally going to do a Black History Month prompt but I couldn't find a way to make it interesting. This month's prompt is inspired from the fact that Valentine's Day is coming up. This month's contest is also a time challenge as you all only have about two and a half weeks. ;) Happy writing!
01.31.2010
Contests, contests, contests! We do have a winner for the January writing contest! Congratulations to sophiesix who won the contest with her entry Home. Great job, Sophie!
01.01.2010
This feeling is so odd - I suddenly I have to get used to writing 2010. My, does time go by fast.
Firstly, the new contest prompt is up. :) I think this prompt will appeal to the sci-fi writers a lot.
Secondly, I have found a wonderful new host for Campanella. If you have somehow found your way here, reading this, that means you did it - you're on our new site. :) I will be leaving Campanella on Webs for another month but afterwards, all content will be removed (except for a "we've moved" link). I highly suggest you start following us here and to never venture back into the horrid world of Webs. Plus, don't you love the new URL? I sure do. :)
Overloaddd is an amazing site ran by Shanelle. There you will find beautiful graphics, layouts, contests, stories, and more! Shanelle has been nothing but kind and helpful to me since I contacted her about hosting so please send her some love on her website. Comment on her cbox, read her stories and vote in the current contests. :)
Anyway...
Welcome to the new & improved La Campanella Awards! :)
.
12.31.2009
Last update of the year. Heck, last update of the decade! And look out because this is a pretty significant update.
Layout: As you can see, we have a new layout! This is Eve's first layout with Campanella and it sure is gorgeous, don't you think? Our last layout was themed around Autumn but since Autumn has passed and frost has rolled in, we decided it was time to switch layouts to reflect the change of seasons (well, reflect the change in the northern hemisphere). I love the blue and white of this layout - it gives off the chilling mystical effects of winter. Please send some love Eve's way for creating this wonderful layout! :)
Apply Page: Yes, we have an apply page now for those of you who are thinking about being part of La Campanella's Staff. Currently, the judge applications are closed since it's the off-seasons. However, the Graphics Artists application is always opened so if you have a gift with graphics, apply away! Any and all help we can get at Campanella is appreciated. :)
Award Suggestions: If you look at the categories page, you will see that there are three more categories in the Autumn Cycle than in the Spring Cycle. That is somewhat of a problem since we like to keep everything even and balanced out between the two cycles. Therefore, we need the help from our viewers (yes, you) to suggest some categories for the Spring Cycle. Please keep in mind that the Autumn Cycle is dedicated to genre-specific categories while the Spring Cycle is more open-ended. We may actually need four more categories for the Spring Cycle since I want to add one more genre-specific category to the Autumn Cycle (I just don't know what to name it yet). So suggest away!
New Categories: The reason why the number of categories in the Autumn Cycle outnumbers the amount in the Spring Cycle is because I added two extra categories (and another one is pending/undecided) to the Autumn Cycle. The first category is Le Poetry Award - pretty self explanatory. The reason why I decided to include a poetry category is because I'm judging Best Poetry at SKoW Awards right now so if you're also a romance/SKoW follower, go nominate! Especially in Best Poetry and Best Tragedy - I'm judging those. ;) The second category I added is Le Prompt Response Fantastique. As we all know, Campanella holds a writing contest every month and at the end of the month, I (LilyAnna) choose a winner out of all the submissions (as well as give honourable mentions). By the time the next Autumn Cycle rolls around, we would have held twelve contests with twelve contest winners. Those twelve winners are the nominees of the category, Le Prompt Response Fantastique. The readers are going to vote on the submission that they felt was the best out of those twelve and the winner of that would become our Contest Winner of the Year. Basically, we're choosing the cream of the crop. :)
New Contest Rule: Due to the fact that the twelve contest winners of the year will face off in the next Autumn Cycle, I have decided to enforce a limit so that an author may only win three times yearly. There's no point in building up to the ‘final show-down’ if all the pieces are by the same author, correct? I still do highly encourage everybody to write for our contests, but if/when an author has won three times, I’m afraid I cannot select that author's submission as the winner even if it is the best. I will, however, give it a special mention if it is deserving of one.
Contest Results: Speaking of the contest, it's time to release the contest results of the December Writing Contest. Firstly, let me give an honourable mention to A Story for the Doctors to Discuss by Lani Lenore, Lost by sophiesix, Let's Bet by Narq, and The Ocean by Aderyn Azula. These entries were all wonderful and I highly encourage for all of you to read and review them. Now let me warn you that the submission that won this month's contest should not be read tonight since we're all supposed to be happily celebrating the new years. The submission really pulled at my heart strings and the conclusion had a sense of finality that was truly bittersweet. Now without further ado, the winner of La Campanella's December Writing Contest is The Statues Speak to Me by RentBoheme. Congratulations!
Other: I am currently looking for a new hosting site for La Campanella. Personally, I really dislike the bar at the bottom of the page. Webs has also been giving me a lot of trouble in editing the site. If you have a site and is willing to host La Campanella, or if you know of a good hosting site, please let me know via the cbox or email. Thanks!
Wow, that was a pretty heavy update. Now on behalf of all the staff members at La Campanella Awards, I would like to wish everybody a safe and very happy new year's.
11.30.2009
Hello everybody! It has only been a couple of weeks since the end of Cycle 1 and I'm already missing all the action around here. Things are going to be a bit quieter now that we're in our off-season. But don't you fret, we're still running our monthly contests and the contest winners are always something to look forward to!
This month's entries were all amazing and I have to admit that I had an extremely hard time choosing the winner. Before I announce the winner, I would like to give a special mention to Dora's Sombreros And The Holy Grail by I Read Your Diary and The Devil's in the Detail by sophiesix. Both short stories were wonderful to read so I highly suggest you check them out.
Now the moment you've all been waiting for...The winner of the November Writing Contest is Lani Lenore with her one-shot, Room 8. It is a thrilling short story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. If you're into Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Thriller, and/or Horror, this is a must-read. Be sure to leave a review and congratulate Lani Lenore! (:
Our December Writing Prompt will be up tomorrow. I hope that the off-season will not affect the number of entries we get for the contests. I will also be putting up so polls later because we need to choose a theme for Cycle 2 (Cycle 1 was our jump-start cycle so we didn't have much of a theme) and a new category as well. All suggestions are welcomed! (:
Happy belated Thanksgiving to all the Americans, by the way! Hope you didn't overstuff yourselves on turkey too much. (;
11.16.2009
And the list is out! It has been a week since the polls were closed and hopefully the suspense didn't kill you because they are here...
The winners of La Campanella Awards Cycle One!
Obviously the entire list would too long to fit on the update itself so you'll have to go to the Winners page to see them. The lovely graphics artists of La Campanella Awards (Kaleigh, Marta, Tahti, and Eve) made some amazing banners for each of the winners. Each banner is unique in its own special way and the artists were able to get all of them finished in the little time of one week. Please give them lots of love, applause and cookies because they totally deserve it.
Also, if you head to our Contest page, click on October 2009 (or you can click on the link right here), you will see a lovely icon made especially for our October Contest winner Kaitlin. The icon was made by Eve and if you want one of these gorgeous icons for yourself, submit a piece for our contest! We do need more submissions for our November contest and you never know, you may be the lucky winner!
I guess I shan't waste your time any much further (I know you're all itching to go to the Winners page - if you haven't already). This does mark the end of Cycle One of La Campanella Awards. I would like to thank everybody who participated in Cycle One, whether you may be a writer, nominator, or voter, for such a successful start. I would especially like to thank the judges (Kathy, Ashes, Hope, Erica, Mysty, Kelly, Rose, Justine, Lily, Written and Charlie), the Graphics Artists, and my Public Relations Person, because without them, 'Nella would not have gotten to where it is today.
Now, just because the winners are out and the first cycle has ended, doesn't mean we're going to be inactive till the next Cycle starts. Be sure to check in every now and then for the features that will be coming out during the off-period! And without further ado, here are the winners (although by now, I'm pretty sure you've already checked out the winners and came back):