[Alex Pepple]

Dear Eratosphereans,

It's time for this year's Sonnet Bake-Off! It will run again with the previously tried and much popular and exciting twist of the double-blind--anonymous judging AND anonymous submissions.

*** TO ENTER :

1. To enter, please send one sonnet per person by email to . (Note: this is not a link, it's an email address--so, don't click on it. Type the email address as indicated into the To/Recipient field of your favorite email-client program.)
   
   1. Only previously unpublished sonnets are welcome. (Make sure your submitted sonnet cannot be found online by a web search of any of the sonnet's title/first line/etc.)
      
   2. Please, include "Sonnet Bake-Off" in the email subject line, and the sonnet itself goes in the body of the email.
      
   3. Your sonnet must be received by by midnight (U.S. EDT) on Monday, May 11, 2015.
      
   4. *NOTES *: i) If your submission is in a file attachment, make sure that your name is not present anywhere in the submission file (for blind judging!). ii) Also, if you know how, please remove your name from the author field of the document properties; if don't know how, then never mind, and I'll have to do it for you.
      
   5. *This is a new addendum (from 4/26/2015)*: Some of you have written to say, with good reasons, that you're baffled about the question of anonymity in an email. (E.g.: How can one be anonymous in the content of an e-mail? And if the poem is an undocumented attachment how can the editor know from whence it came? Will it be lost in the shuffle without an identity? ...). It seems I missed indicating that I will be personally anonymizing the submissions before forwarding to the DG. Usually, I can tell who's submitting from the email's address field, but to be sure, also add the author's name at the end of the email's subject field, if necessary.
      
2. Our anonymous Host & Distinguished Guest will select about ten finalists (more or less at the DG's discretion). The DG will post the finalist sonnets, two per day, with their comments, starting on Friday, May 15, 2015. At that point everyone is welcome to join in with comments of their own. In order to allow sufficient time for comments on all ten finalists, popular voting for readers’ first, second and third choices will begin on Friday, May 22 and end at midnight (EDT) on Monday, May 25, 2015. Results will be tabulated and a popular winner will be announced as soon as the DG can manage it, at which time all ten finalists’ identities will also be divulged. The DG will also announce their own top picks.
   
3. Only then will the names of the authors be announced ... and twist twist, the identity of the Host & DG will then be revealed! So, for this bake-off, you can have some fun guessing not only the identity of the sonneteer posted, but also guessing who the Secret Distinguished Guest & expert sonneteer is!

And it's a go ... so, go ahead -- submit now! Submit one, submit all!

Cheers,
...Alex