Virgins! We’ve got lots of virgins!

We love virgins here at yeah write, and this week brought a whopping nine new faces to the challenge grid. Thanks for joining us! With the influx of new blood and the participation of our regulars, we unlocked a fourth vote and the editor-curated invitational grid. Let’s hand out some bling to the winners!

Editor picks and invitational grid

In weeks when we hit 30 posts, we open up the invitational grid and the editors move their favorites up to compete for the jury prize. This week, five posts made the cut. Congratulations to Bill Dameron, Almost Iowa, Larry Gross, Jessie Powell, and Malin James! You’ve each earned an editors’ pick badge from the sidebar.

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Jury prize

“Spinning Bottles” by Bill Dameron at The Authentic Life

Bill Dameron at The Authentic Life takes the jury prize for “Spinning Bottles,” a two-part coming of age story that explores the search for identity. Bill leads us on a meandering journey through adolescence and early adulthood, yet never digresses from his core theme. Along the way, he treats us to spot-on details like his step-grandmother’s red lipstick that “bled into the tiny cracks around her mouth from years of smoking Virginia Slim cigarettes.” It’s a nostalgic tale of two kisses and the life lessons learned from eighth grade parlor games, champagne, and the Catholic version of sex ed.

Congratulations Bill! The jury prize badge is all yours.

Crowd favorite

“Spinning Bottles” by Bill Dameron at The Authentic Life

It’s Bill again! Congrats for the double win. Go snag the crowd favorite badge and slap it up on your blog next to your jury prize.

Congratulations also to the rest of the top row: Cindy R (thanks!), Rowan G, and Austen! Your top row badges await you.

Who does Comment Bob love this week?

Comment Bob can barely carry all the badges he’s awarding this week. Jessie at Jester Queen modeled the best of yeah write by leaving meaningful, thoughtful remarks that truly supported each writer. Newcomer Cindy at A Slice of Life made the rounds and also replied to every person who took the time to comment on her own post. Jennifer at Mamarific showed some awesome yeah write love on social media and Jen of Finding Our Spirit was simply everywhere cheering on her gridmates. Congratulations! Bob has badges waiting for you in the sidebar and, if you’re extra nice, he might let you shake his pompoms.

Weekend moonshine grid opens today at 6 p.m. eastern time

It’s the weekend, and Natalie D will shortly be setting up the moonshine grid and bathtub gin just for you. Natalie bought way too many Bomb Pops for Flag Day and she’ll be awarding them to the winners of her “Who Knows Natalie Best?” trivia contest. The moonshine grid is the flip side of our weekly challenges: a no-stress link-up where we accept anything except commercial or sponsored posts. Show us the other facets of your blog – those posts that might not meet the challenge grid submission guidelines. Closing time is midnight on Monday.

Win-win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most votes to the least. In the case of a tie, the thumbnails are additionally sorted by page views. Do not be discouraged if your blog has landed near the bottom of the grid; especially if it was a tight race. The fun lies in getting better exposure for your blog and, in the spirit of competition, an incentive to improve your writing and blogging skills. It’s a win-win for everybody involved. Thanks again, everybody, for submitting, for reading, and for accepting the weekly writing challenge. And for making yeah write the most welcoming spot on the Interwebs for writers who blog and bloggers who write.

Before you go

Take a moment to congratulate this week’s winners in the comments, and give a shout-out to your favorites on the grid. Come back next week and spin another yarn for us in about 600 words.

Yeah write #168 opens with the kickoff post on Sunday, the gargleblaster on Monday, and the challenge grid and speakeasy fiction jam on Tuesday. Be sure you’ve subscribed to our email list to get notice when prompts are posted, grids open, and voting begins. It’s easy to do! Just sign up right here. And then come back and bring your best writing to the best writing community around! See you next week.

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