How many times have you been offered the chance to name a character in a published work? And how many times has that been for the main character of a work where a substantial portion has already been published?

As those of you who have been following Beyond the Mist know*, the main character has no memory of who he was, would like to recover his old name, but has the option of choosing a new one for himself. The instalment in Issue 6 has been tweaked so that it will end just as he is about to choose a new name, and I am inviting Sci Phi Journal’s readers to choose what that will be.

This will be done in the form of a contest; the winning entry will determine his legal name in the story world from that point forward, (and will remain so even if he later discovers what his old name was). This name will reflect what he has discovered about himself so far, as well as what kind of man he intends to become in the future.

The format of the contest is as follows:

1. Choose a first name and family name, and write a short justification for choosing those names.

2. Email your entry to editor@sciphijournal.com with ‘Beyond the Mist Contest’ in the subject line (important, if you don’t do that, your entry will not get to me.)

3. The closing date for entries is 11.59pm GMT on the 14^th of July (approximately two weeks after Issue 6 is published, so that people can adjust their suggestions according to what they learn about the main character in chapters 10 and 11). This will give me enough time to decide on the winner and incorporate it into the next instalment.

4. The winner (chosen by me) will be announced publicly in Issue 7, will receive a free printed copy of that issue as well as signed copies of Nobility Among Us and Selected Verse: Faith and Family. The printed copy of the journal may take a number of weeks to arrive, depending on the winner’s location in the world.

The contest is now open, good luck and spread the word as widely as you can, please!

*and if you haven’t been following the story, now is your chance to catch up, since chapter 1 can be read for free here, and the ebook versions of issues 1-4 of Sci Phi Journal are now half price for the whole of this month.