I've gotta say, I don't really have any idea how to make this work for everybody. If we eliminate well-known and popular authors just because they are well known and popular, as opposed to basing that decision on the merit of their work, we'll be accused of being exclusionary and prejudiced against those authors (as opposed to being prejudiced against their work and that's not any better.) And then we've got the entire "oh no, judging!" by having to set some arbitrary limit or try to define what popular and well known -- I mean exactly how do I set that standard? Anyone with over 500 people on their flist, more than 20 stories, with a combined comment count that exceeds 1000?
And say we stick to lesser known authors (with yet another set of criteria to define lesser known), given the comments already being leveled, who is going to read them? Or the anthology when people are already stating how they intend to avoid it at all costs?
So, what the actual goal is, what the best outcome could be, is to have a mix of old and popular or old and unknown and new and popular and new and unknown and hopefully a few who are just plain new,(or older fen with unpublished new works) and see if offering a broad range of stories and a broad range of authors doesn't actually offer the fandom something that actually does bring some benefit and joy, because it's familiar and they like to see their favorite authors do good, and because they might find a new favorite, and because we can promote new works as well as old and everyone wins.
It is open to anyone, any type of story, no matter how new or old, or the author's current standing or reputation in fandom.
no subject
And say we stick to lesser known authors (with yet another set of criteria to define lesser known), given the comments already being leveled, who is going to read them? Or the anthology when people are already stating how they intend to avoid it at all costs?
So, what the actual goal is, what the best outcome could be, is to have a mix of old and popular or old and unknown and new and popular and new and unknown and hopefully a few who are just plain new,(or older fen with unpublished new works) and see if offering a broad range of stories and a broad range of authors doesn't actually offer the fandom something that actually does bring some benefit and joy, because it's familiar and they like to see their favorite authors do good, and because they might find a new favorite, and because we can promote new works as well as old and everyone wins.
It is open to anyone, any type of story, no matter how new or old, or the author's current standing or reputation in fandom.