[Chris O'Carroll]

As some of you know already from Lois's and Rob's posts in the "updated poem" thread, the New Statesman regards competition entries that have been posted here as previously published and therefore ineligible to appear in the magazine.

To anyone who has had an entry disqualified on that basis, I apologize for having been unaware of the policy. Now that I know, I want to alert everybody to refrain from posting anything that you're going to submit. Unless, of course, your entry is good enough to beat mine, in which case you should definitely post it, and make a point of notifying the NS that you have done so.

I've sent Vicky an email on this subject, and will post an update if there is any further news.

[Graham King]

Thanks for the caution, Chris! Wow... that shakes things up a bit.

As a precaution (a postcaution now, surely?) I feel I'd better not post on Eratosphere my entries to ANY magazine's competitions, unless the magazines concerned let us know they will definitely not be disqualifying entries for having appeared here.

I'll still look in for the comp notices and results, and any updates on this situation.

Cheers!

[Peter Goulding]

As a regular winner, I can well understand your reluctance to post up here Graham.
Personally, I'm quite happy to keep posting. I never bloody win anyway and I find the advice from experts in the field invaluable.

[Ann Drysdale]

Since this is the first anyone's heard of this and therefore it presumably hasn't applied till now, it would be interesting to know what prompted the decision. Keep us posted, Chris.

[Brian Allgar]

Although I've never received any such warning from Vicky, I did notice that before joining this site, I had a good run of winning entries, and that after joining and posting my entries here, my success rate dwindled to the merest of trickles. At the time, I attributed it to a combination of Competitor's Conceit and paranoia, but now I'm not so sure.

[John Whitworth]

It may have been in force for quite some time. Vicky said she just hadn't noticed my winner a month ago.