Another great birthday week!

As we move toward our 2nd birthday here at yeah write, we are so grateful for such enthusiastic spirits who’ve been celebrating with us. This week, we had five virgins on the grid and three born-agains who returned after a long break from our shenanigans. Welcome and welcome back! We’d love to see you here again next week.

Jury prize winner—invitational grid

“Fashionably Challenged” by Dana Verdoorn at The Chrome Phase

Really, Dana’s first clue should have been the public foot rub in what could have been full view of her employer and co-workers, but the mind likes to play tricks. Dana’s story of an afternoon spent with her friend Amir was interesting, humorous and brief, much like what, I am sure, the actual friendship must have been. Without weighing her readers down with unnecessary detail, Dana takes her readers to lunch, on a shopping trip and, eventually, to an understanding, delightfully left unsaid, at the story’s conclusion. 

If you haven’t already, read Dana’s piece. Not for shadowy emotional tugs or distracting purple prose, but for the art of simple storytelling: an inviting beginning,  a rise and fall in the action, empathetic characters and an ending that sticks the landing, telling us no more or no less than what we need to know.

Well done, Dana. Congrats on your jury prize win and we’d be honored if you’d display your winner’s badge on your post.

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Crowd favorite—challenge grid

“Thirteen” by Sam Merel at This Heart of Mine

Sam won over the popular voting crowd with the story of her first kiss at summer camp. We learned of the ritual of “getting walked back” and were reminded of our own years of borrowed jeans and Bonnie Bell lip gloss. Congrats, Sam, on another crowd favorite win. Please grab your winner’s badge from the sidebar.

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Random winners of yeah write #101 birthday gifts

We’re still handing out gifts for our birthday celebration! We combined the challenge grid storytellers with the speakeasy writers and anyone who sent us a virgin to either grid. This week’s winners:

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• Kirsten Oliphant won the $50 lululemon gift card
• Robbie K won the novel Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

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Congrats, Kirsten and Robbie. Email us your mailing address so we can send your gifts. For the rest of you, the party continues next week. We have more goodies for our friends.

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

Tell your friends! Yeah write is now open on the weekends—no editors, no voting, no writer’s block—just hanging out in the clearing among the trees and discarded moonshine jugs. Use this chance to show the yeah write community the other side  of your blog—your top 10 lists, your stream-of-consciousness posts, that hilarious text message exchange with your brother. No commercial or sponsored posts allowed, but this will be a good space for letting us all know when you have a cool blog event coming up.

The moonshine grid opens at 6 p.m. eastern time each Friday and will close by 12:01 a.m. each Monday. Grab the badge from the sidebar and go find the perfect post to share!

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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. Part of the top row five? Please grab a winners’ badge from the sidebar and display it proudly on your own blog. Congrats!

Do not be discouraged if your blog has landed near the bottom of the grid; it is always a tight race. The fun lies in getting better exposure for your blog and in the spirit of competition as incentive to improve your writing and blogging skills. It’s a win-win for everybody involved.

Thanks again, everybody, for linking up, for reading, 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.

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