Confusion Over the Bill Crider Prize

Earlier this week, I received—as did other crime-fiction bloggers—an e-mail note explaining that the deadline for submissions to Bouchercon’s inaugural Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction had been extended. The cut-off date would no longer be today, March 1, we were told … though no new date was yet available. We were asked to let our readers know of this change. Because the person behind this message is usually so trustworthy, there seemed no need to question its contents. And so I did not.

However, several bloggers have said over the last couple of hours that the reported deadline alteration was incorrect. I just fired off a message to the official e-mail address listed on Bouchercon 2019’s Bill Crider Prize page (subs.deepintheheart@gmail.com), requesting that this issue be cleared up, and received the following reply:

March 1 was and is the deadline. Since it is a worldwide contest, March 1 ends at the point when the last place turns into March 2.

I’m not sure how this confusion arose (I suspect the affair is more complicated than we yet comprehend), but it seems that the information regarding a deadline delay was erroneous. Fortunately, word of the change came late in the game; anybody who was going to submit a story to this contest probably had his or her materials ready by the original deadline. Nonetheless, I am sorry for any uncertainty The Rap Sheet caused by spreading this “news.”