On May 17 I'll be hosting the 20th edition of The Boneyard, but rather than just collecting a group of links from whatever might happen to pop up on the web I've decided to do something a little different. I want to run a contest for anyone who might be interested, and the theme of the competition is going to be "Meeting a prehistoric creature."
You could write some fiction about coming across a dinosaur in the woods or a Neanderthal on a subway, relate a real-life experience digging up fossils, talk about an early trip to the museum, or anything else that might come to mind on the theme of encountering some ancient extinct creature. Be as creative as you would like, but keep in mind that all entries must be in my inbox by 12 PM eastern time on May 17 if they are going to be included.
Those that participate will have the opportunity to win a few prizes. The 1st place winner will get a copy of Ralph O'Connor's The Earth on Show, the 2nd place winner will receive a copy of Dinosaurs: Past & Present (Volume 2), and the 3rd place winner will receive Edwin Colbert's Men and Dinosaurs. I realize that some of you might already own some of these books, and if you win but already have a copy of the book, the 2nd place winner will receive a $10 amazon.com giftcard and the 3rd place winner a $5 amazon.com gift card. I am willing to ship the books to wherever the winner may be, so international bloggers should not be discouraged from submitting an entry.
Now comes the relatively tricky part; judging. After the posts are all up, votes for the top 3 entries can be left in the comments. The entries with the most number of votes at any given level will win. In the case of a tie, I'll probably ask for the council of another blogger & Mrs. Laelaps. All votes must be in by May 24th (one week after the carnival is posted), and at that time I'll tabulate everything and put up a post listing the winners.
I really have no idea how successful this contest is going to be, but I thought it would be a good way to try and stimulate some good blogging while giving something back to some of my fellow paleo-bloggers. If you'd like to participate but don't yet have a blog, then what better time than now to start one? Blogspot and Wordpress are the most popular blogging platforms, and it's very easy to set up your own little space on the web. Also, keep in mind that I will be collecting regular paleo-posts for the carnival, so if you don't want to submit anything to the contest (but still want to have something in the Boneyard) please send it along. The carnival will be in need of a host for May 31st, too, so if anyone is interested please let me know.
I think that those are all the important details. Any questions can be left in the comments and I'll modify the rules listed above if necessary.
- Log in to post comments
What an excellent idea! I will try to come up with something good to send to you, Brian, but more importantly I look forward to reading the creative entries.
...fiction. -Makes happy noises- Would you suggest a ceiling on the word count, or is the Cambria sky the limit? I can get a little...uh...prolix, sometimes.
(...maybe I should type it on a keyboard that isn't going to be leaving my 'n's and 't's all over the place.)
sounds fun! If I can think of a good idea, I'll definitely give it a shot!
HELL YES.
Art? Is art good?
Quick question on the contest.
Having never submitted for a boneyard before I'm not sure on common procedure.
Just the way you have it worded I'm confused. Do we send you the link to our entry or do we send the entry as a document?
I'm going to assume it is as simple a link, but just want to make sure
Cheers
PI; The procedure has always been to just send me a link to the posts. That way you get a traffic bump, although I also don't have the space to post all the full entries here.
i've already written most of the story for my entry, but I only just realised I don't have a blog! Also, it's probably rubbish compared to other stories, should I still send it anyway?
Mo; Please, send it in! The easiest way for you to submit it would be to set up a blog (see the links to wordpress and blogspot in the post) and put it up there. If you really don't want to do that for some reason, let me know and I'll try to work something out like hosting the story here (it has to be up somewhere on the web so people can read it and then vote on it). When you've got a link to it, send it to me by e-mail and then you'll be all set.
Done! I give you my conversations with Cothurnocystis.
Finished, and available for shredding here.
Hold the doors! This is just in:
http://nemoramjet.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-post-is-quite-different-fro…
It's before Monday where I live, so please count this among the entries.
I wish I'd found out about this sooner.
(but I'll write something for it - even if there's no hope of winning anything; that's okay)
Too late to enter but have a peek on me... :-)
http://MightyMammoth.com