It took longer than planned, but here's what the world has been waiting for (and I'm not talking about the apocalypse): the judges' selections for the top 10 stories in the 2012 Creative Loafing Fiction Contest.
They are (in alphabetical order): “Cigar City Angel Dust”; “Death Roll”; “Euquerio”; “Fifteen Is the Dog”; “Finders and Seekers”; “It Invariably Happens Right Down the Street”; “The Prodigal Cigar”; “The Tabaquero's Squirrel”; “The War Is Over”; and “Ybor Noir.”
One of these stories has already been selected as the winner of the judges' prize, to be announced in the CL issue of January 3, 2013. But the winner of the readers' prize? That's up to you, and you can vote right now at cltampa.com/YborFiction; voting ends on Thursday Dec. 27 at 9 a.m.
The readers' choice winner will also be published in the Jan. 3 issue, and both winners will be invited to read at a public event on Sat. Jan. 12 at CL Space, Creative Loafing's events venue.
This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2012.