NOTE – the timeframe to enter this contest has expired! Good luck to the roughly 50 authors who made the time and effort to submit stories.

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Motif is excited — and a little filled with creeping dread — to be working in collaboration with NecronomiCon Providence on a new Extend the Mythos contest for writing and art. This is an opportunity to get involved with the ongoing convention homage to one of PVD’s more influential historical figures, horror writer HP Lovecraft, whose eerie conjurations haunt us to this very day, their grandchildren populating mainstream horror of almost every type.


Entries must be original creative work evoking the themes, images, characters and feeling of the Cthulhu mythos and must not have been previously published elsewhere.

The winning entry in each category, determined at the sole discretion of our panel of judges, will be published on our website and in our August 15 issue, which will be distributed statewide and at NecronomiCon, happening Aug 22 – 25. Honorable mentions will be published on our website. Submissions by e-mail must be received by us no later than 11:59pm on Jul 31, 2019; no other submissions will be accepted. Winners will be notified by Aug 14 via e-mail sent to the address from which we received their entry. Additional haunted goodies, still to be determined, will also be awarded.

Each entry must include your real name, city and state of residence, and optionally a pseudonym if choosing not to be published under a real name. (Including your telephone number is helpful.) There is no minimum age, but entrants under the age of 18 must accompany their entry with a statement of permission from a parent or guardian.

Use of the City of Providence and its surrounding area as a setting counts in your favor, but is not necessary.

Writing category: An English-language work of prose fiction with a maximum of 2,000 words. It is not required that you try to imitate Lovecraft’s style; make it spooky or horrifying. Send to cthulhu@motifri.com as either plain text or HTML text in the body of your message, or as attachments in ODT, DOC/DOCX, RTF, or PDF format. Avoid use of any art, photographs and spacing or very unusual typographical elements as that could make it difficult for us to print.

Art category: A work in digital form with resolution of at least 300dpi. Non-digital (such as hand-drawn or painted) work must be scanned at similar resolution. Send to cthulhu@motifri.com as attachments in TIF, PNG, (high quality) JPG, or PDF format. Printability/ reproducibility will be a factor in the judging. Does it creep out or scare the pants off the judges will be the other important factor, and of course the judges will assess how well it is in keeping with the spirit of Cthulhu lore.

Send any questions to cthulhu@motifri.com as well. Motif reserves the right to change or waive these rules at our sole discretion.