Sponsored by the Sylphira_Community, which I recently joined. YIKES. I think I forgot to check in today. And it's nearly one in the morning - I can't believe it's taken me hours to make this contest list book - I have to be on the phones at 9 am tomorrow. Coffee. Will need much coffee.

Anyway. I submitted Ancilla to the Romance category and Best Aesthetics sub-genre, and I volunteered to help judge the Fantasy category - not sure what books I'm assigned, but as soon as I find out I'll list them here. 

I think this was the contest where I was asked if there was a version of Ancilla that would let any judges under the age of legal adulthood, or who were just not comfortable reading sexually explicit material, avoid sex scenes. The answer is yes. Ancilla is a work of literary erotica, and while the Kabbalistic Tree of Life is its backbone, its flesh and nerves are BDSM and power exchange. Nevertheless, it has an actual plot, and the characters are well-developed outside of the sex scenes. Anyone who wants to avoid reading explicit sex scenes can access the "soundbite edition" and just skip the chapters that have an asterisk beside them.

UPDATE (4/19/2024)  - I won first place in the Best LGBTQA+ category! 

Screenshots of contest results:

I submitted my own Best Epilogue judging results just before Ramadan. The results were released in mid-July. The two contestants who did not win can contact me or the host for their score sheets. For now I'm going to say this was very close, and almost wound up being a three-way tie for first place.