So the Sobol award is gone, now here comes a new award contest. Here’s the skinny from Gather.com:

Today, I’m exceptionally excited to announce Gather’s newest writing competition, one of our most promising programs to date: The Gather.com First Chapters Writing Competition. First Chapters offers thousands of aspiring, but unpublished, authors the opportunity to win a guaranteed publishing contract with Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, promotion and distribution by Borders, and a $5,000 cash prize from Gather.com. This competition will launch the career of one talented Gather member and introduce many others to the industry.

Maybe this contest will actually work.