Kirk/Spock Online Festival/KSOF 2003
The third Kirk/Spock Online Festival was announced quietly in January 2003 with a simple pointer to the KirkSpockFest egroup (restricted membership) for those who wanted to participate. Scenarios were now called challenges, and all challenges for the first wave were to be developed within the group. A few weeks later it was announced that each participant would issue one challenge and that those challenges would be randomly allocated. Artwork for the first wave did not appear to be challenge related.
The second wave was markedly different from all previous approaches, with a minimum word requirement for stories, a cash prize offered and the possibility of inclusion in a dedicated print zine. It was first announced in June 2003, again with a quiet approach and pointing people to the website details, but in September of that year a lack of participants prompted a much more detailed post on various newsgroups and mailing lists, as well as in The K/S Press Issue 85.
Announcements
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KirkSpockFest/Anyone who feels up to joining the Kirk/Spock Online Festival can check out the rules on that site.
Welcome![1]
The Kirk/Spock online Festival of 2003 has started, and anyone who wants to participate should join now.We're going to do this a little differently than before. Thanks to Downdilly for the idea!
We're going to challenge each other. We're going to draw names, and anyone who wants to participate will be allowed to make ONE challenge. This challenge will be dealt out randomly to one of the other participants.
You game? Then join us here;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KirkSpockFest/[2]
There's another Kirk/Spock Online Festival brewing. This one is SLIGHTLY different from the old one and I beg of you to read the rules and the challenges carefully. Here's where you find the information: http://www.kardasi.com/KSOF-2003/[3]
Dear K/S Writers,Imagine this: a cold winter's afternoon and (unbelievably) you are free for hours. There's a comfy armchair beckoning you, perhaps your laptop is ready to be popped open, and you know that for the next several hours, you'll get to read a long and luscious K/S story.
That's exactly the scenario that Lady Kardasi's Domain and Beyond Dreams Press are trying to create with the Kirk/Spock Online Festival 2003, Wave II. It's the novel/novella challenge! Yes, we've announced this before, but so far there aren't that many people participating, so we are upping the ante, and really hoping that many of you will give this challenge a try.
What's different with this announcement? Well, for one thing, we've established real cash prizes that might go up in amount if we receive a few donations, but will definitely be at least at this level:
First Prize: $50 Second Prize: $30 Third Prize: $20
If you'd love to be that person in the first paragraph, reading on a cold winter day, then why not encourage people to participate by adding a few dollars? Donations can be given at the KSOF-2003 website, URL below. Maybe you have an extra two dollars that you can contribute. The top three stories will win the prizes, with the reservation that there are several submissions to choose from.
But...the prizes won't mean much if we don't have participants. We want you, to write! But not only that. We want you to write a longer K/S story! Would you consider taking up this challenge? Novellas can be from 15,000 to 40,000 words. Novels can be from 40,000 to 100,000 words. The deadline is December 31, 2003. There are lots more details at the website at http://www.kardasi.com/KSOF-2003/, which is also where you can donate the money you've earned (with blood, sweat and tears) to this worthy cause!
If you are planning on participating in the KSOF of 2003, please join the list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KirkSpockFest/ Please don't join unless you plan on writing something for the festival, though, since there won't be any stories posted on the list.
We really hope this challenge has many participants. There is so much talent in fandom! We hope you'll consider sharing your talent with a long and luscious K/S story.
kira-nerys and Jenna Sinclair
PS: if you're running a K/S-slanted website and/or mailinglist, feel free to spread the word around![4]
Wave 1
Rules for Wave 1 were distributed only within restricted and limited membership egroups, so cannot be reproduced here, but were very similar to previous festival rule sets. Once the challenges had been made and allocated within the KirkSpockFest egroup they were published to Lady Kardasi's Domain and out of the 13 challenges listed, 9 stories were eventually published as KSOF Wave 1.
Challenges
| Author | Challenge | Issued By |
|---|---|---|
| Acidqueen | Valeris was spying on Kirk in TUC. We only see the last time she spied, because that was when she finally got the stuff she needed from Kirk. But presumably she didn't have the amazing luck of getting that on the first try. She'd probably been eavesdropping or spying visually or whatever for weeks... her reactions to a Kirk/Spock sex scene? In my mind, they're an old married couple at this point, but that doesn't make it any less hot. How would Valeris react? Shock? Disgust? Arousal? Amusement? Indifference? Valeris POV or third person subjective... so she gets to describe it. | Farfalla |
| Dina | A slight rewrite of the ending of Squire of Gothos. Trelane of Gothos has decided he needs a pet, and Kirk will do admirably. He's quick-thinking (for an inferior life form), agile, and healthy. He's also house-broken and learns quickly. Trelane's "parents" are almost convinced. How does Spock unconvince them? | Downdilly |
| Dreadnought | Write a story, where the problem is not Spock being cold, but Kirk being hot. | Vanasati |
| Farfalla | After the fal-tor-pan, some lingering connection remains between Spock and McCoy, the keeper of his katra. How do Kirk, Spock (and McCoy) deal with this? | Sara |
| Farfalla | Kirk witnesses Spock receiving a blowjob administered by another member of the crew. Kirk & Spock are not lovers at the time & never have been. What happens? | JS Cavalcante |
| Jesmihr | Kirk and Spock’s shore leave gets interesting when Spock accidentally becomes inebriated. | Unknown |
| Lyrastar | Kirk (or Spock - your choice) is captured by an enemy (Klingons, Romulans or somebody else - as you like) and replaced by a clone. How and when will the other find out, how will this inflict their relationship etc. | T'Len |
| Rae Trail | Spock and Kirk wake up on a prison ship. | Menolly |
| Sara | The boys and the 23rd century version of "parking"--whatever you consider that to be. Not accidentally stranded together, but planned by one or both of them. | Lyrastar |
Reactions and Reviews: Wave 1
For full story and art lists, together with reactions and reviews, see Side by Side Special Edition 3
Wave 2
This was the first time a competition style KSOF had been run, with cash prizes of $50 for first place, $30 for second and $20 for third and although it was not specified in the rules, payment of the prizes was initially said to be 'with the reservation that there are several submissions to choose from.'[4] Money for the prizes was collected by donation, in part from organisers Jenna Sinclair and kira-nerys, but largely from anonymous donors[5] and prize amounts were to be adjusted if more donations were received.
Despite the cash incentive, in the end only three novellas were published as KSOF 2003 Wave 2 and the tentatively planned printzine did not go ahead, although the winning story Mimor Six was included in Cyberdreams #2.
Rules
1) Join the KirkSpockFest list to be part of the writing process [...].2) You don't have to participate in the writing to be a member of the list, but NO STORIES WILL BE POSTED ON LIST, so there's really no point in joining unless you plan on writing for the fest.
3) Starting date is now. Whenever that is.
4) Deadline is December 31, 2003.
5) Stories may end up in a KSOF PRINTZINE when they are finished, to be published by Beyond Dreams Press. (This is with the reservation that there are enough submissions to fill a zine.)
6) Stories will end up in a special edition of Side By Side when they're done. Unless your story is chosen for the printzine, in which case it may end up being held offline for another six months or so.
7) You may not post the stories anywhere else until the stories have been displayed in Side By Side for TWO months. No exceptions. They are not even to be posted to the KSOF list. Have them beta-read and then submit the stories to me at [...].
8) All stories must be beta-read for grammar and spelling. Use the spellcheck in your wordprocessor at the very least. If your story is selected for the printed zine, they will recieve a thorough line-edit.
9) Stories are to be submitted in either txt (if you don't mind not having italics and other formatting involved) Word or HTML. If your story is word formatted, make sure that SMARTQUOTES are off, that you do NOT include strange formatting such as tables/tabular indents/lines and/or shading or hard linebreaks in between paragraphs. If you don't know what I'm talking about, send a clean textfile. If you send HTML, do not include any fancy formatting. Just plain text with bold or italics for emphasis.
10) All stories need the following headers:
- Title:
- Author:
- Rating:
- Pairing(s): (if others than K/S)
- Disclaimer:
- Summary:
- Feedback address:
11) For the challenges go here.
12) The committee of judges who will decide which stories are to end up in the printed zine are Jenna Sinclair, D'Anne and kira-nerys.
13) Those authors whose stories are selected for the KSOF zine will recieve a free copy of the final product.[6]
Challenge
The challenge this time around is a joint effort between Side by Side and Beyond Dreams Press and what we would like you to do is ...1) Write a K/S novella or a K/S novel.
- NOVELLA: 15-40 000 words
- NOVEL: 40-100.000 words
- No story may be shorter than 15.000 words (or roughly 35 pages in MS Word) and no story may exceed 100 000 words (or roughly 200 pages in MS Word).
2) The story can be either First Time story or Established Relationship, but it has to center around a romantic/sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock.
- This doesn't mean that you can't focus heavily on plot - quite the contrary. I'd love to see some well-thought-out, heavily plotted stories submitted to the fest. You may depict Kirk and/or Spock in relationships with other people so long as the overall intent and subject of the work, and the final product, is K/S, and I request that there are not too explicit depictions of K and/or S with other people. No third party - as in no threesome novellas/novels allowed. You may include other pairings in the novel/novella whether they are slash or het. These encounters may be written as explicitly as you wish.
3) Rating should be from PG and up.
- Considering that they should be in a sexual and/or romantic relationship. However, that does not mean that you have to include explicit sex unless you want to. No Gen stories.
4) Three winners will recieve prizes.
- Check the prizes link for more information
Reactions and Reviews: Wave 2
For full story and art lists, together with reactions and reviews, see Side by Side Special Edition 4