Human + Machine Fiction

The In Silico Awards

Honoring excellent fiction made by humans and machines together. Judged first as fiction.

2027 cycle Submissions open December 1, 2026, and close February 1, 2027.

What this is

A serious home for AI-assisted authorship.

The In Silico Awards recognize fiction shaped by human imagination, machine assistance, and exceptional creative process.

We exist for writers with stories, worlds, images, arguments, and emotional truths they want to bring into fiction. Writing craft matters, but it should not be the only gate. AI-assisted workflows can be another artistic medium: a palette, an instrument, a revision partner, and a way to shape what is inside the author into a work that can move another person.

Subject matter is open. We are not looking for stories about artificial intelligence; we are looking for crime novels, ghost stories, family sagas, romances, westerns, and literary fiction that happen to have been made this way. The machine belongs in how a work was made, not in what it is about.

Current status

Building the founding circle.

Advisor feedback

Rules, judging, ethics, and submission safety are being refined before launch.

Reader pipeline

The review model is human-led, partial blind, and story-first.

Submission system

Paid public submissions will open only after intake, privacy, and review workflows are ready.

Did the work move us?

Did it provoke us?

Did it stay with us?

Was a human being making the taste calls?

Awards

Planned Year One Honors

The first year stays focused. The panel may combine, reduce, or withhold any award; prize amounts are announced when submissions close.

Flagship honor

The In Silico Grand Award

The strongest work of the year, selected from finalists across every category. Judged on what the fiction achieves and on the human direction behind it.

Special citation

The Galatea Citation

The process award, for a genuinely inventive method of making. It may go to a work that is not the strongest entry but that expands what the field understands about process. Awarded only when warranted.

Short Fiction

A story of 10,000 words or fewer that earns its length: force, precision, or surprise in compact form. Any genre or subject, with a disclosed machine-assisted process.

Longform Fiction

Novels, novellas, and serials from 10,001 to 180,000 words that sustain a reader across distance. Any genre or subject, with a disclosed machine-assisted process.

Youth citation

Future Scriptorium

For a writer under 18 whose short fiction shows real imagination, emotional force, or conceptual ambition. Guardian consent and added privacy safeguards apply. Awarded only if eligible youth entries are received.

Eligibility

Fiction with a human author and a disclosed machine-assisted process.

View submission materials

At least one named human author directs, reviews, and accepts responsibility for the work.

A machine took part in making the work, disclosed honestly. There is no minimum or maximum amount of generated text.

The submission includes a process dossier, disclosure form, and rights attestation.

Technical repositories are welcome but not required; a clear written process dossier is enough to enter.

Judging

The finished work comes first.

Eighty points go to the fiction and twenty to the account of how it was made. Made with AI is expected. Unedited isn’t. Readers judge whether the text has been worked. A plain-language process account can earn full marks.

50 Fiction: impact

30 Fiction: originality

10 Process: clarity and honesty

10 Process: direction

Use the tools. Credit the tools. Show what you made together. Make it good.

The founding creed — read the founder’s note

Timeline

The 2027 cycle

The dates are set. Get your manuscript, author statement, and process dossier ready now.

December 1, 2026
Submissions open for Short Fiction and Longform.
February 1, 2027
Submissions close at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. Prize amounts are announced once the cost of review is known.
February–March
Human review: independent first reads, full reads for advancing work, process review, then finalist deliberation. People make every decision.
Spring 2027
Finalists and winners announced.

Founding development

Help build the human review team.

We are seeking founding advisors, first-round readers, process reviewers, and final judges with experience in fiction, editing, literary criticism, AI-assisted creative workflows, copyright, publishing, ethics, and computational creativity. Reader and judge roles are intended to be paid; workload, schedule, and compensation will be confirmed before anyone commits.

Get involved