It looks like Spring 2010 is going to be a busy season for Hanfic. The Spark Inside is back again with yet another challenge.

This year the theme is “How Far We’ve Come.” Writers are challenges to take a look at an old story and rewrite the first chapter of a multi-chapter story or rewrite a short story the way you would do things now.
Writers will be providing the original along with the rewritten version to give the readers a basis for how they’ve progressed as writers over the years.

The schedule goes as follows:
- Sign-ups: February 17th – March 3rd
- Writing Time: March 5th – March 31st
- Stories Due: April 1st

If you’re interested, visit the site, check out the rules and sign up!

Awards season is also upon us yet again. Thieves and Liars is back for it’s second run. The first session of awards originally ran back in September – October of 2009. There is plenty of time to familiarize yourself with the categories and consider the stories you might nominate.

The schedule goes as follows:
- Nominations: March 11, 2010 to April 1, 2010
-Voting: April 2, 2010 to April 23, 2010
- Winners Posted: April 25, 2010

With plenty of things coming up, we have lots to look forward to. You can keep up to date with the latest in Hanfic by checking our Calendar and subscribing to our monthly Newsletter.

The JSOR Newsletter for February 2010 has been sent out. If you’ve not already signed up for the newsletter and would like to, please go here and fill out the form. Please make sure you confirm your subscription. While you won’t receive February’s newsletter, you’ll be all set come March!

While the JSOR News Center is still fairly new itself, we already have a new project we’re working on to help expand the site. We are working on a monthly newsletter. We haven’t hashed out all of the details yet, but the newsletter will likely be independent from the main site. We might have an archive of the old newsletters, but this is something you would receive at the start of each month and will focus mostly on the fan fiction itself. We’re looking to create a way to help both readers and writers to reach a broader audience.

What you can expect to find in the newsletter is links to the new stories posted each month as well as links to recently finished stories, so if you’re a reader that likes to jump into reading something as it’s being update or prefer to wait until a story is finished before you dived into reading, we will have something for everyone. This will include both long and short stories.

The newsletter may also include info about various projects, awards and new Hanfic related websites. We’re aiming to start small and slowly work out way up to creating something a little more comprehensive.

For January’s newsletter, we will accept stories that were started and finished from November through December, so you have a fic or know of one, please fill out the form, so it will be included in the newsletter. And if you’d like to be kept up to date with the newest and most recently finished fics (and maybe some other fun Hanfic related news), please subscribe to the newsletter.

In most fandoms you’ll likely find lots of fansites dedicated to various facets within the fandom. Hanfic has been around since 1997, and while there have been several sites decided to the subject, it’s never really had a site quite like PlaceToHide.net.

The site is run by Bethany and was created to fill a gap in Hanfic. What kind of gap, you ask? Well, we have fan fiction websites, communities, forums, and even a news center, but before PlaceToHide.net, we didn’t have an online magazine.

PlaceToHide.net is a place for readers and writers to explore the various aspects of Hanfic. You’ll find a comprehensive directory to fan fiction, well thought out articles exploring various topics within the fandom written by both readers and writers, and monthly spotlights that feature websites, stories and authors.

It is still in it’s early stages, but check out the site and please consider making some kind of contribution!

The 10 in 10 Challenge is a challenge where you write 10 chapters in 10 days of a new story. After the 10 days are up, awards are given out by people’s votes.

The timeline is as follows:
12/4/09-12/13/09: Sign ups are open
12/14/09-12/23/09: 10 days of Writing
12/24/09-12/31/09: Reading and Voting week.
1/01/10: Winners Announced!

To check out of all of the rules and to sign up, visit 10 in 10 Challenge 2009. Also, check out the JSOR Forum Thread for additional information.

Christmas is quickly approaching, and we have a couple of different Christmas related things going on.

The first is Christmas Time run by Becca. She will be accepting Christmas Hanfics until December 10th. Stories will be posted beginning December 15th. There are no restrictions on the length of the story, but the due date is quickly approaching. You can find out more details about how to submit your story at Christmas Time, and you can also visit the JSOR Forum Thread for additional information.

The second event is the Hanfic Christmas Awards. Nominations are being accepted through December 10th, so there’s still time to make sure your favorite authors, stories and characters are on the ballot. Visit Hanfic Christmas Awards to read all of the rules regarding nominating or visit the JSOR Forum Thread for additional info. Voting will begin on December 11th and will go through the 24th with winners announced on Christmas day!

Hello, and welcome to the Just Shy of Reality New Center. JSOR has been around for some time now, and, though our Hanfic Community is quite small, we still always have a lot going on. The News Center was created as a way to consolidate all of the latest Hanfic News and present it to readers and writers alike in one place.

The calendar on the sidebar shows both Today’s Events and Upcoming Events. If you hover over each of them, you can see the details. If you click on the Calendar page, you will find a calendar for the month as well as the rest of the year. Many times we run into overlapping deadlines or events, and we would like to use the News Center as a way for everyone to let everyone else know what awards, contests or other various projects they are running and when.

The News Center is also host to a Directory organized to help keep everyone in the loop with all of those Hanfic sites out there. Guests and site owners may submit links to help build up the directory, so please take a look and add your favorite Hanfic sites.

We also have a Twitter account for you tweeters out there to follow. A new tweet will appear with each new post, and on the side of this post, you might notice the Tweet option. Click on it, and you can tweet about this post on your own account and help spread the word.

JSOR is also an affiliate of HanficSprints – a livejournal community run by myself and Renee P. Through the month of November we created a chat to help each other get through NaNoWriMo, and since it was so successful, we have decided to continue with the chats. You can check out the details at the community to join the fun.

Since the site is new, we are, of course, looking for staff members to help out – primarily with making posts about the latest events, keeping the calendar up to date and promoting the site. If you’re interested, please fill out the staff form!