From the hosts

We acknowledge that there has been controversy regarding our contest. As to what is behind this, we don't know. We have no idea who would want to sabotage the hard work of the two hosts, the secret keeper, five judges, four validators, two graphic artists, forty one entrants, the countless betas, numerous pre-readers, and the scores and scores of loyal followers of this contest.

We pride ourselves in acting fairly, and do so knowing our integrity is intact. While there has been speculation about a particular entry in our contest, we maintain our position - we do not disqualify based on speculation alone. 

In light of recent events, we accept that the public vote—for which we were going to award First and Second Place—has been compromised. We do not believe anybody should be disadvantaged, nor at this stage, disqualified. We've decided to change things up a little, with the purpose of keeping things as fair as possible.

We've made the choice to remove first and second place from the Public vote. We will now be awarding The Dirty Five, in no particular order. This will be the top five placed in the public vote. To place top five in a field of forty is an exceptional effort. We believe this should be rewarded.