Congratulations to our winners!

Conventional prizes

Grand prize: The Creature of Ashen House, by David Wakeham — $1,500
First runner-up: Doctor Up and Mister Down, by Gerard McCaul — $1,000
Second runner-up: Eikonal, by Paulo Barreto — $500
People’s Choice Award: Pursuit, by Cristina Legarda — $500

Idiosyncratic prizes

For its badass steampunk heroine: Stealing Buttons, by Jeff Provine — $250
For its wit and (relatedly) its portrayal of academia: Three Imperiled Scientists, by Matt King — $250
For its steampunk atmosphere: The Recurrence Machine, by Rick Searle — $250
For its heart-capturing automaton: Looking Forward, Looking Back, by Claudia Clarke — $250

Read all the finalist stories below, and read about contest statistics in this blog post. Thanks to all our writers, readers, and judges for participating!

Congratulations to our short-listed authors!

Below are the short-listed finalists for the 2023 Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest. Vote for your favorite story in the People’s Choice Award category! Enter your vote at this link by 11:59 PM ET on April 16, 2023.

The Recurrence Machine by Rick Searle : “I am a writer with a deep interest in physics and its implications for the human condition.”
Doctor Up and Mister Down by Gerard McCaul: “I am a British physicist who works on quantum control theory at Tulane University in New Orleans. After the third incident, I am no longer allowed to discuss my interests in polite society.”
Stealing Buttons by Jeff Provine: “Jeff Provine is an English teacher at Oklahoma City Community College and graduate of the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. He believes science and the arts are best experienced together.”
The Creature of Ashen House by David Wakeham: “Interdimensional wizard.”
Tunneller by Alexander Campbell: “I’m a novice writer. I’ve been deep into sci-fi and fantasy since I was old enough to read, and I hope to make a living as an author someday.”
Looking Forward, Looking Back by Claudia Clarke: “Claudia Clarke’s PhD is in Quantum Thermodynamics which she’s definitely going to start describing as a PhD in Quantum Steampunk from now on. She writes fiction she rarely shows the world too.”
Redacted Pages From the Journal of W.E.B. duBois by Chana Kohl: “Chana Kohl works in Jerusalem in clinical research. Writing in her free time, her stories appear in 365Tomorrows and Metastellar. She is winner of the 2022 AnalogSF Emerging Black Voices Award.”
Ai Pan by Alex Chan: “As a tech product manager, I spend my days thinking about how existing and near-future technology can be used to make lives better. Writing allows me to theorize about more speculative technologies and their impact on individuals and broader society.”
Pursuit by Cristina Legarda: “I was born in the Philippines and grew up in Bethesda. I hold degrees in literature and ethics and am a practicing physician in Boston. My work has appeared in Ruminate, Smartish Pace, and others.”
Reprobate by Mason Rouches: “I’m a PhD student studying Biological Physics at Yale University. Sometimes my interests in thermodynamics are rivaled by my interests in 19th & early 20th century literature.”
Three Imperiled Scientists by Matt King: “I’m a certified nerd and lifelong storyteller. Currently pursuing a Physics PhD at Yale University, I am working to unravel some of the latest mysteries in neutrino physics.”
The Final Dawn by Nathan Suri: “I am a particle physics graduate student, trying to explore the universe from its smallest levels to its largest. I seek the truth through a myriad of lenses, empirical and creative.”
Eikonal by Paulo Barreto: “This is not the kind of text I usually write (I did it almost on a whim, over a couple of hours after hearing about the contest)—but hey, there’s a first time for everything!”
Raintown by Katherine Wong: “Katherine Wong is an undergrad at Stanford University studying Symbolic Systems (Computer Science + Philosophy/Psychology) and English. She loves reading/writing sci-fi and collecting funky earrings.”
A Message for Dr. Y.S. Sun by M.H. Cheung: “M. H. Cheung is an alumnus of the Alpha Young Writers Workshop, and enjoys stories about broken worlds, how to mend and live within them. M. H. can be found on Twitter @einduawau, and at mhcheung.com.”

Rules

Each entry must…

be written in English;
contain no more than 3,000 words;
be written in a steampunk style—including, but not limited to, taking place during the 1800s (and, if desired, some time in the future); and
involve at least one real or imagined quantum technology.

Those are the main requirements. Common-sense details are in the Contest Rules.

Stages

Submission: Oct. 10, 2022—Jan. 15, 2023, 11:59 PM EST, via submission form.
First cut: Jan. 15, 2023—Mar. 15, 2023.
The leadership team will choose 15 finalists.
Finalist judging: Mar. 16, 2023—Apr. 16, 2023
The judges will select winners. The finalists will be posted online, where the public can vote for a People’s Choice Award winner.
Announcement of winners: May 1, 2023

Prizes

Multiple prizes will be awarded, in the form of Visa gift certificates. The grand prize will be $1,500; the rest of the prizes will be at least $100 each and will total $3,000. The leadership and judges will determine how many prizes and which denominations to award. We anticipate offering prizes for categories such as Most Badass Steampunk Hero/ine, People’s Choice, Best Student Submission, and Quantum Technology We’d Most Like to Have.