Ragnarok Alum wins Literary Fiction Prize

Ragnarok alumnus, Jay Antani, has achieved two important milestones in his writing career recently. His novel, The Leaving of Things will be republished on Kindle on November 18. A chapter from this book appeared in the Fall 2012 edition of Ragnarok.

The Leaving of Things also won first place in the Literary Fiction category at the 2014 Kindle Book Awards. Drawing on his own experience, Jay crafted a fascinating story of an Indian-American teenager forced to return to India because of family circumstances. Jay's chapter had garnered an honorable mention in Valhalla Press' 2012 writing contest. The judges were intrigued by Jay's tale of reverse immigration.

We at Valhalla Press are particularly gratified by Jay's success. The goal of our contests and the Ragnarok e-lit journal has always been to identify and give a platform to literature's emerging voices. In Jay's case, it appears we were right on the mark.

For those interested in reading Jay's work, the Fall 2012 edition of Ragnarok is available for only 99 cents. That issue also includes the work of Jan English Leary, Mary Beth Ellis, Mark Levine, Jennifer Peckinpaugh, Davey Jones, Jamie Derkenne, Albert Davenport,, John Pistelli, and Adrienne Terrell Washington.

To discover other emerging voices, we recommend downloading the Spring 2013 edition of Ragnarok, also, just 99 cents, to read the works of Robert Robeson, Orla McAlinden, Jo Haraf, Satya Khan, Mark Levine, Dominic Carew, Joseph Peacock, Wendy Roberts, Benjamin R. Smith, and Joel Burcat. Where author names appear as links, the links take you to their works on Amazon. As you can see, the Ragnarok writers are a pretty talented bunch. If you have not done so already, we invite you to sample their works.

Our Writers are Busy

Two of our writers have recently posted blog postings concerning their writing careers. John Pistelli looks back at his writing of The Ecstasy of Michaela two years later. Also, Albert Davenport discusses the enduring fascination with the apocalypse and how that influenced his novel Revelation 11.

Each work that an author writes gives readers a snapshot of the author's style and worldview. Unless the reader follows the author's work, that view may harden into an obsolete, distorted vision of his or her work. John Pistelli's post shows how just two years in an author's life can alter his perceptions and writing style. Returning to a writer can afford the reader a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the writer and his work.

The popularity of HBO's The Leftovers set Albert Davenport thinking about human fascination with the apocalypse. His post tells a little about how his musings on the "end of days" provided his upcoming novel, Revelation 11's, essential conflict.

We invite you to enjoy our writers' blogs and their works. The Ecstasy of Michaela is available on the Valhalla Press website and Revelation 11 is currently being marketed by Dean Krystek at the Wordlink Literary Agency. Fans are encouraged to 'Like' the Revelation 11 Facebook page.

New Ragnarok Issue Published

Due to the large number of entries in our two contests, the judges are running behind schedule in providing feedback to those who submitted works. For those of you who have not yet received feedback, the judges expect to have them all completed by April 15. We apologize for any inconvenience, but rest assured feedback is coming soon.

The Spring 2013 issue of Ragnarok- the e-lit journal of Valhalla Press is available in Kindle form from our website for $3.99. Even if you don't own a Kindle, you may download the issue to your PC or MAC. The Fall/Winter 2012 issue is now available for .99.

For five days, starting March 14, readers may download a FREE Kindle copy of J. Calvin Pierce's The Door to Ambermere from Amazon. For those who haven't read the first in Pierce's trilogy, this is an opportunity to enjoy a light-hearted fantasy at no cost. If you read the original 20 years ago when this cult classic was first published, you have another chance to travel with Daniel, Hannah, and Marcia through the Door to Ambermere to meet such memorable characters as the bumbling magician, Rogan, and the insatiable King Asbrak the Fat. Oh yes, there is a demon and a beautiful lady involved.

Amazon prime members may borrow a copy of Door to Ambermere free. Amazon limits the number of books members can borrow to one per month.

Complete List of Contest Winners

The judgements have all been rendered and the roll will be called in Valhalla. As stated previously, the winner of the Valhalla Press Flash Fiction/Flash Memoir Writing Contest is Robert Robeson for his story of heroism in Vietnam "Doc Drevo's Disarming Decision". Second prize went to Orla McAlinden for her memoir of growing up in Northern Ireland entitled "Control Zone." Two honorable mention winners from the contest will also have their work appear in Ragnarok-the e-lit journal of Valhalla Press. Jo Haraf's flash fiction piece, "Cherry" tells the story of how an old car leads to a new relationship. Satya Khan's flash memoir, "The Absence", explores postpartum depression.

We had a double winner in the Valhalla Press Legal Professionals Writing Contest. Mark Levine took first prize for his work "Margaret Mead". His story, "The Pain Industry" garnered honorable mention as well. Dominic Carew's legal-dystopian vision (a new genre, perhaps?), "The Documents", took second prize. Joel Burcat won honorable mention kudos for his novel excerpt, "The Executioners". Congratulations to all of our winners.

Ragnarok's Spring 2013 issue will also feature three directly submitted fiction pieces. Joseph Peacock's "Old" looks into an aging man's attempt to redefine himself in his later years. Wendy Robert's "Ouroboros" is set in Belgium shortly after the Nazi's retreated. Finally, Benjamin R. Smith's "Two in the House of Happy Air" explores a future where the arts are illegal.

Flash Fiction and Flash Memoir Contest Winners

Robert Robeson has won First Place in the Flash Fiction and Flash Memoir Contest for his story "Doc Drevo's Disarming Decision," which will appear in the next issue of Ragnarok the e-lit Journal. He won $500 and a Kindle Paperwhite.

Second Place goes to Orla McAlinden for her story "Control Zone." Her story will appear in the next issue of Ragnarok the e-lit journal and will receive a Kindle Fire.

Honorable mentions will be selected in the next week or so. In addition, all entrants will receive feedback in the coming weeks.

And the Legal Writing Contest Winners Are:

Mr. Mark Levine won First Place for his story "Margaret Mead." He received $500 plus a Kindle Fire and publication in the next issue of Ragnarok the e-lit journal.

Mr. Dominic Carew won Second Place for his story "The Documents." He will receive a Kindle basic and publication in the next issue of Ragnarok the e-lit journal.

The other writers who entered the Legal Writing Contest will receive feedback on their work in the next few weeks and a few will also receive honorable mention and publication in Ragnarok. We expect to announce those honorable mentions next week so stay tuned for more announcements.

The winners of the Flash Fiction and Flash Memoir Contest will be announced later tonight.

Winner announcement coming very soon

For our readers in earlier time zones, we apologize for the delay. It is indeed March 1 here on the Eastern Seaboard and we will be making the winner announcement very soon. There is heated debate among the judges and we hope to break the deadlock after lunch and maybe a Scotch or Rum and Coke.

Contest Winners Will be Announced This Week

It's going to be a busy week in Valhalla. The judges are looking over the entries in the Valhalla Press Flash Fiction/Flash Memoir Contest and the Valhalla Press Legal Professionals Writing Contest. The winners will be announced March 1. Winners of those contests will have their work featured in the Spring issue of Ragnarok-the e-lit journal of Valhalla Press.

Also, we have begun formatting the works found on our website for the i-pad and other Apple devices. Just this week, we released John Pistelli's Ecstasy of Michaela for the iPad. Other works will be released soon.

Those who want to follow our contests can sign up for our contest e-mail list on our contest page.

Finally, this week's featured e-book is Albert Davenport's short non-fiction piece, In the Shadow of Midnight: Daedalus: A Tale of Savannah. Albert has provided some background details of the story in his blog postings that can be found on our Author Blogs page where you will also find blog postings by John Pistelli and Adrienne Terrell Washington. Adrienne's memoir The Original Party Girl and other (very) personal essays is our featured short non-fiction e-book this week.

Enjoy your week in Valhalla.

Ragnarok, the e-lit Journal of Valhalla Press is now listed on Every Writer's Resource's list of Literary Magazines. This has been quite a month for Ragnarok. Readers are discovering the fine work contained in the inaugural issue as evidenced by increased sales and posted reviews on Amazon, Goodreads.com and other sites. Ragnarok has moved its submission process to Submittable.com, the industry standard.

We stated at the outset that we sought to "showcase some of the best writing in English produced in the world today" and we believe we have done so in our inaugural issue. Currently, we are selecting works for the next Ragnarok issue. Winning entries from our recently concluded Flash Fiction/Flash Memoir Contest will appear as well as those from our Legal Professionals Writing Contest. Winners from both contests will be announced March 1. The Flash Fiction/Flash Memoir contest winners will provide all the short works we need, but we are still looking for quality longer works, from 2,000 to 5,000 words, for the next issue.

We do charge a $3 non-refundable reading fee, but all authors whose works are chosen for publication will be paid $25. Interested authors should go to the Ragnarok page and follow the submission instructions. We look forward to them.

VP Interviews John Pistelli

Here in Valhalla, we know the link between writer and reader can be a magical one propelling the reader to a literary paradise like--well--Valhalla. A successful literary work can spur readers to dig deeper, to find out more about the author, learn how the author crafted the story, and ultimately build a more profound bond with the writer, the story's characters, and the world they inhabit.

This week we have just such an opportunity. John Pistelli, author of The Ecstasy of Michaela, graciously agreed to sit down with Valhalla Press partner, Albert Davenport, to discuss his novella and an article Pistelli wrote for the initial issue of Ragnarok, the e-lit journal of Valhalla Press, entitled The Strange Lanes of Hell: Against Materialist Anti-aesthetics.

The interview gives readers an insight into a talented writer, his creative process and the post-industrial, dystopic world Michaela and Pistelli's other characters haunt.

News from Valhalla

Valhalla Press recently concluded two writing contests, a Flash Fiction/Flash Memoir Contest and a Legal Professionals Writing Contest. We would like to thank all of you who entered your work. The judges will be choosing the winners during February and announcing them by March 1. First prize in each contest is $500, an e-reader, and publication in the Spring 2013 issue of Ragnarok, the e-lit journal of Valhalla Press. Second prize winners will receive an e-reader and publication. An as yet undetermined number of entries will win honorable mention prizes which includes publication. The authors of all works chosen for publication receive $25. All authors who submitted works will receive constructive feedback on their stories. That's just how we roll in Valhalla.

Valhalla Press is also partnering with Submittable to accept future submissions for Ragnarok. Submittable is quickly becoming the industry standard for authors. We charge a $3 reading fee for these direct submissions and provide constructive feedback. We review submissions monthly and just reviewed January's entries--a few gems there, but more about that later in the month.

Those who wish to stay up-to-date on our writing contests have several options. You may sign up for our e-mail list on our contest page, follow us on Twitter (@valhallapress), or like us on Facebook.

Valhalla's minions are busy at work on other projects as well. As they come to fruition, they will be revealed.

The Value of Critiques

We received an ad in an e-mail the other day from a well respected writing magazine offering short story critiquing at $4.00 per page with a minimum submission of 5 pages. The reviewer would accept stories as long as 30 pages. So for from between $20 and $120 authors could have a thorough critique by a professional writer.

Contrast that with any Valhalla Press contest. In Valhalla, all entering authors receive feedback on their work at no additional charge. A professional author's critique of your work is included in the $15 entry fee. Admittedly, our feedback is not the down in the weeds line editing the $4.00 a page folks were offering, but the comments they provided in their online sample were on par with what we provide--and again--it is included in the entry fee. Also, our contests offer authors the chance to win $500 for first prize along with the e-reader of the winner's choice. Second prize winners receive their choice of e-reader and those chosen for publication are paid $25.

Those who do not win still get feedback that they can use to improve their story and they will only have paid a $15 entry fee, not $120. We provide the feedback because our goal is to build a writing community. We also believe it is what makes our contests one of the best values available to aspiring authors. Get all the details at our contest page. Feedback on the stories you submit are just part of the reason Valhalla Press is the e-publishing paradise.

Legal Professional Writing Contest

We are trying something new at Valhalla Press, a Legal Professional Writing Contest. In the past, our contests were open to anyone as is the case with our current Flash Fiction/Flash Memoir contest. However, we know many legal professionals who are closet novelists, bloggers, or even poets. (We have even heard some fantasize about being the next John Grisham or Lisa Scottoline.) Given legal professionals' skills and yearnings, we felt we should create a forum just for them.

We define "legal professional" broadly to include judges, attorneys, paralegals and even law students. Because writing is so integral to the legal profession, we hope our contestants will provide us with some literary gold nuggets. Submissions may be either fiction or nonfiction and must be 5,000 words or less. Click here for complete contest rules (Gotta have rules for a legal writing contest, right?).

First prize is $500, an e-reader, and publication in our e-lit journal Ragnarok . Contestants who wish to get a feel for the types of work we are looking for should download the inaugural Ragnarok issue. To enter the contest, go to our contest page to submit your entry fee and story.

Contest Update

Considering entering one of our contests, but not sure what sort of work we publish? Get yourself a copy of the first Ragnarok an e-lit Journal and read our contest winners plus other Valhalla Press author works.

Ragnarok-Valhalla Press' e-lit Journal Publishes First Issue

Ragnarok's inaugural issue is now for sale on the Valhalla Press Website. We believe readers will find a wide variety of entertaining stories. The issue contains a rich cross-section of fiction and non-fiction pieces culled from winning submissions to the Valhalla Press Literary Fiction and Creative Non-fiction Contest and contributions by Valhalla Press Writers, Albert Davenport, John Pistelli, and Adrienne Terrell Washington.

In assembling the issue, we attempted to provide a wide variety of perspectives on life as seen through the eyes of our writers. First Prize winner, Jan English Leary, presents a taut narrative of suburban life in "Mother's Helper". In "People Who Choose to Run", Second Prize winner, Mary Beth Ellis, portrays a group of twenty-somethings thrown together by cyberfate at a science fiction convention. The issue features works by new writers, Jay Antani, Jaime Derkenne, and Mark Levine as well as contributions from Ecstasy of Michaela author John Pistelli, a selection from Adrienne Washington's The Ultimate Party Girl and other (very) personal essays, and stories by veteran writers, Jennifer Peckinpaugh and Davey Jones.

The issue, our first endeavor of this kind, represents the distillation of several months work. We couldn't have done it without the support of all contest entrants and their positive feedback at every step of the process. Thank you. Ragnarok's inaugural issue represents another step in our attempt to build an online writing community. Enjoy!

Valhalla update

The news from Valhalla: We are in the midst of a historic storm. Likely the launch of Ragnarok will be delayed as the gods fight it out. Thanks for your patience.

Paid Reviews Not Welcome in Valhalla

In today's Business Day section of the New York Times, an article told Todd Rutherford's story. Rutherford built a business, GettingBookReviews.com, by providing positive book reviews for a price. At its height, the business pulled in approximately $28,000 per month. Regardless of the book's quality, Rutherford and his minions always provided a positive and often stellar review. Perhaps it is simply a by-product of the information age. Consumers have massive amounts of information to digest and little time to do it. Rutherford and his ilk offer the equivalent of a digestiv to keep the consumer from getting informational indigestion. It is in fact a sugar-covered placebo luring the reader into a false sense of well-being. Over the last several years, we have seen investment banks, ratings agencies and government regulators offer dishonest assessments of economic instruments with catastrophic consequences. It is often tempting to cut corners, but we at Valhalla Press feel that markets depend on integrity, that what the seller tells the buyer is true, that the buyer knows that a review is coming from a disinterested third-party, not the writer's shady shill. Our policy is to immediately terminate our contract with any writer who pays for reviews. We owe the readers who purchase our books nothing less.

Contest News

Important Contest Update

As we are nearing the finish line for our first contest, we have a few important updates:

1. Every entry will receive individualized feedback on each submission by our judges. It’s the least we can do and is, frankly, our pleasure.  

2. Every entry that does not win one of the big prizes but which will be included in the first issue of Ragnarok will receive payment.  This is very different from the industry custom.  Frequently, writing contests offer publication to writers who don’t win the big prize, but don’t offer payment. We think this is wrong. If your work is selected for inclusion, you will receive payment of $25.

3. We will not be extending the deadline. We think that’s unfair to writers, who are expecting a decision. While deadline extensions are also an industry custom, it’s wrong and even a little insulting to those who have entered.  We give our prizes away on schedule.

If you have hesitated to enter, now there is even more reason to get your work in by the deadline, August 31, 2012.  If you enter, you receive:

Detailed feedback

Prompt prize payment if you win

Payment for your work if you don’t win but are selected for inclusion in Ragnarok

What to look for in a writing contest

Not every writing contest is the same and some are even unreputable. It's writer beware. Here are some indications that a contest is legitimate:

1. It offers a substantial prize for the winner, often including cash plus publication.

2. The entry fee, if there is one, is reasonable and in proportion to the potential prize.

3. The prize is real - that is, cold hard cash and not a coupon or anything else that can't be used in the real world.

4. It does not take a writer's rights to the work beyond what's reasonable (and in our view, ethical). For example, some contests claim all rights to any work that is submitted, even if it doesn't win the contest. This is wrong. If you don't win, the work should remain yours to sell or publish elsewhere.

5. The contest provides contact information and someone available to answer questions. Your questions are answered by a real person before you submit your work.

The Valhalla Press contest meets all these guidelines.

Our submission fee is modest and is paid through Paypal, a safe and convenient way that doesn't expose the writer to the risk of providing credit card or banking information to an unknown party.

Our prize is paid in cold, hard cash, right into the winner's Paypal account for use as he or she sees fit. There's nothing to buy and no preconditions. We also send the winner his choice of ereaders, at our expense even if the winner is outside the United States. The only exception is if the reader can't be imported into the winner's country. In that case, we will substitute an additional amount of cold, hard cash.

 We do not take any rights from those who don't win. We only take first electronic publication right from the winners who will appear in our e-lit journal, Ragnarok.

We answer all questions promptly, via email. If you wish to talk to one of us via telephone, email us and we will send you our phone number. We primarily use email because we know many of our contestants are overseas and don't want to incur the cost of an international call. But the option is open.

Of course, you don't have to take our word for all this. Many writer's magazines publish guidelines on contests too (and run contests themselves.) For an unbiased view on why writers should enter contests like ours, check out this recent article in The Writer:

Use contests as a stepping stone by Hope Clark.