Congratulations to our editor picks!

It’s been a wonderful summer of steady growth here at yeah write during a time when blogs traditionally suffer decreased traffic and interest. This community keeps coming back and bringing new friends, and it’s a lovely amalgam of readers, writers and voters each and every week. We thank you for that. 

When the weekly challenge grid hits 30 or more entries, the editors choose their favorites and move them to the invitational grid as editor picks. From the editor picks comes the jury prize winner. Congrats this week to Mayor Gia, Christi, Maria, Arden and Susannah. Please grab your editor pick badge from the yeah write sidebar!

Jury prize winner

“I Can Spell Crazy” by Christi at EditMoi

Christi of EditMoi writes on her “About” page that everyone needs an editor.  This is true. Yet, to her credit, she does a stellar job of editing herself in this week’s jury prize winner, the story of an eight-year-old traveling to visit her adult sister in a mental asylum.  Christi spotlights the moment the child narrator announces to the carload of relatives she knows how to spell the word crazy, then misspells it.  What follows is joyous laughter.  Relieved laughter.  Please-give-me-something-to-laugh-about laughter.  Her misspelling (“carzy”) becomes a family joke, code for “whatever was beyond crazy, things that were hilariously weird.”  While that spotlight glares, she keeps in the shadows more heart-rending information: in the car are the baby and small son of the crazy lady.  The husband of the crazy lady.  This isn’t a one-time car ride.  It’s routine.  

The yeah write editors liked the clean structure, the surprise ending and, especially, the way Christi treats her readers like grown-ups, leaving us to figure some things out by our own carzy selves.  Congratulations, Christi, on the win. Please grab your jury prize winner’s badge from the yeah write sidebar for display on your blog.

Crowd favorite

“Twice in Five Minutes” by yeah write contributing editor Courtenay Baker at Soup

Yeah write editors are ineligible for the invitational grid (editors choosing other editors doesn’t sound very fair), but we admit to feeling validated when our hard work is voted the crowd favorite on the challenge grid. Congrats to yeah write editor Courtenay for her win this week with her essay detailing the good vibrations of a complete stranger in Target complimenting her parenting skills, then hearing it again from one of her own children. With the win, she’s getting it for a third. Congrats, Courtenay! Please grab your badge—oh, you know the drill. You work here.

Did you know yeah write is open on the weekends?

After all the hubbub and anxiety of the writing challenge, we know you need some non-competitive downtime, and that’s why Michelle Longo hosts the yeah write weekend moonshine grid just for you. Please join us beginning Fridays at 6 p.m. US eastern with any post you feel like sharing. As long as it’s not a commercial post or commercially sponsored, it’s welcome.

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.

Before you go, please congratulate the winners in comments

Or, give encouragement to those who come out and support us all week after week. A good word is always nice to share with others.