Human-Machine Fiction

The In Silico Awards

Honoring outstanding fiction created through transparent, human-directed AI-assisted workflows.

Submissions are planned to open in Fall 2026.

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.

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

Final categories will be announced before submissions open. The first year is designed to stay focused, credible, and manageable.

Flagship honor

The In Silico Grand Award

Awarded to the strongest overall work of human-machine fiction, considering both literary achievement and creative process.

Special citation

The Galatea Citation

Recognizes unusually elegant, experimental, or revealing human-machine collaboration.

Short Fiction

For compact works that use AI-assisted workflows to achieve force, precision, or surprise.

Longform Fiction

For novels, novellas, serials, or other substantial works shaped by human-machine process.

Creative Workflow

For the clearest, most useful, or most inventive account of human-directed AI-assisted making.

Youth citation

Future Scriptorium

A guarded citation for eligible authors under 18, with parent or guardian consent and added privacy safeguards.

Eligibility

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

View process dossier template

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

AI or LLM-assisted methods are used in a meaningful part of the creative workflow.

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.

The awards judge the fiction and the process behind it. A complex workflow will not rescue an unengaging story, and a simple workflow can be excellent when it produces strong creative control and a distinctive result.

45% Fiction impact and quality

20% Originality and ambition

20% Human-machine process

15% Transparency and ethics

Timeline

Founding cycle target dates

Dates remain provisional until formal launch.

Summer 2026
Advisors, rules, and category details announced.
Fall 2026
Submissions open.
Winter 2026-2027
First-round reading and process review.
Spring 2027
Finalists announced.
Summer 2027
Winners announced.

Founding development

Advisors, judges, and readers are invited.

We are seeking people with experience in fiction, editing, literary criticism, AI-assisted creative workflows, copyright, publishing, ethics, and computational creativity.

Get in touch