What is Campanella?
Campanella recognizes and awards all of those amazing stories on the interwebs. Although most online stories are centred around romance, there are some amazing stories that aren't. We try not to focus on romance stories, rather the opposite. We want to award those stories with well thought-out plots, heroic protagonists, and dare I even say admirable villains! Those stories aren't getting the recognition they deserve which is the reason why Campanella is here.

This site doesn't like romance? But every story has a bit of romance in it!
We don't dislike romance. I, personally, love romance! However, we do request that the nominations for Campanella be non-romance. In other words, the story cannot focus around romance; the story can still go on even if the romance portion was taken out by the author. There may be romance within the story, as long as it's subtle and not too plot-altering.

So what's with the weird name? What is it? German? Latin?
La Campanella is French Italian (thank-you Liza for informing me of this) for 'The Little Bell'. However, if you ever google it, you will most probably get the result of some famous piano dude playing an etude by Lizst. I am actually a music nerd at heart and La Campanella by Lizst (based on two themes from Paganini's Violin Concerto) is my absolute favourite piano etude. I, unfortunately, am not at the level to be able to play it yet. As for why I named the site after that etude? Well, it was rather a spur of the moment decision.

La Campanella Awards is such a mouthful to say. Is there a shorter version we can say/type?
You can always just call it Campanella as I tend to do. Or you can shorten it even more, calling it the Nella Awards. I think the Nella Awards still sounds pretty, even if it totally takes away the whole meaning of 'the little bell'. Really, just whatever floats your boat...as long as you don't sorten it to 'The Camp Awards' because seriously, who would want to win an award like that?

Why is this website so much like SKoW?
That's a very good question and I must give credit where credit is due. SKoW can, technically, be considered our 'mama-site'. La Campanella Awards is based off of SKoW Awards. In fact, La Campanella Awards wouldn't have even been created had it not been a comment on the SKoW cbox! However, I will mention that this awards site differs from SKoW drastically in the fact that SKoW is geared towards romance whereas we are not.

How many categories are there and what are they?
Currently, there are 24 categories. For a detailed list of the categories, along with their specific requirements, please visit the categories page.

When do you run nominations, voting, etc.?
We run things called 'cycles'. In each cycle, there are 4 weeks of nomination, 4 weeks of voting, and then the winners are announced. There is an one week gap between each period, thus a cycle would usually take over two months. We hold two cycles a year and we try to hold our cycles during SKoW's off-season (in other words, Autumn and Spring) because we don't want to intimidate the readers with content from both sites.

How many stories can I nominate?
You can nominate as many stories as you like. However, please don't nominate the same story over and over again. The amount of nominations will not alter the judges' final decision so save yourself some time by nominating each story once. To check if your nomination was sent successfully, you can check your email to see if you received a copy of the nomination form or you can contact the judge directly.

What sites do you accept stories from?
Any and all writing sites on the interwebs! We are not only dedicated to FictionPress because we believe great writing could be found off of FP as well. You just have to dig through a lot of junk to find those gems. (:

Who chooses which stories are nominee-worthy?
We have a special panel of judges to determine the nominees. For each category, there are two judges assigned. The judges are to judge [obviously] the nominations that come in to them and give each a final 'oui' ('yes' in French) or 'non' ('no' in French) rating. At the end of the nomination period, they will send me their entire list of stories, each with its own rating. The stories that recieve a 'oui' rating from both judges are the stories that will make it onto the nominees list. This will make sure that the decision isn't biased. This is also the reason why there isn't a 'set' number of nominees per category. Some categories may have 8 stories in which both judges rate a 'oui' to whereas other categories may only have 4 nominations in which both judges agree on.

Wait, if there are 20 categories and two judges per category, doesn't that mean there needs to be 40 judges altogether?
Nope. Each judge is assigned two categories. I will try to balance it so that a judge will receive one heavy category and one light category. However, this is still a lot of work for the judges which is why all judges should be appreciated for their work!

A judge rejected my nomination, but I don't agree with the decision. What should I do?
Unfortunately, a judge's decision is usually final. If you have any questions/comments/concerns, you can always reply to the judge in which they will further elaborate on why the story was rejected. However, the chances of changing the decision are very slim.

Oooh! I have an idea for this website! Where can I share it?
Well, you have a few options: put it in the cbox for everybody to see or if you think it's a bit personal, then you can email it directly to me.

Any other questions? Feel free to email them to me.