What a great week of reads. Thanks to everyone who added a link, read a post, left a comment and/or voted their hearts out. You make it all worthwhile.

Virgins!

The grid closed at 75 blogs so quickly, we barely let this week’s eight newbies experience our awesomeness. We’re glad you guys squeaked through, and we hope to see you for yeah write #54. Early. But still bringing your best stuff, not your rushed stuff. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Editor’s choice by Erica M

Wow, Robbie at Fractured Family Tales has come a long way since first joining us a few months ago. Her stories are narrated with more discipline, and she’s learned to steady her pacing and rhythm. Her winning post this week about her first day at a new school when she was a young girl put a lump in my throat and I don’t mean that in the cliched way: it was a real lump of pained emotion, and that’s when I knew Robbie had me. I also like how the comments were filled with similar stories or empathetic experiences, showing she’d captured her audience. Congrats, Robbie, on the win.

Lurker’s favorite by Flood G

Flood chose The Momalog’s post on meeting one of her literary heroes Czeslaw Milosz. Flood writes:

[blockquote]Ado had me in a puddle on the couch with her tale of meeting her late grandfather’s good friend, author Czeslaw Milosz. I literally held my breath while Milocz took his time to decide if he understood who she was after she introduced herself via microphone at a fully-packed university symposium. I ended up a blubbering mess when he finally did. Just writing about it now makes me teary. It’s rare, even for people who knew their departed loved ones well, to gain the kind of insight as Ado gained that night about her grandfather, and I was thrilled for her.[/blockquote]

Congrats, Ado, on the win and will you guys please help me welcome my friend Flood back to Twitter? 

Lurker’s favorite by Emma T

Emma chose Chicken Noodle Gravy’s The Land of Missing Pets and writes:

[blockquote]I was able to find humor, love, happiness, and sadness all at one time while also remembering pets I’ve lost to the Land of Missing Pets, only hoping that someone is there to take care of them.

Katie described the search for Danny so vividly. I tried to imagine how that horse got out. I can almost see him sprinkling magic dust on the fences so that he could trot on down to the local church to pray or nibble on a floppy hat.

Katie’s story about her Houdini horse reminded me of the time my hermit crab must have “climbed the oak tree in my front yard.” Hmmm…likely story. I searched for Pebbles for months and, even as a teenager, I looked for that crab.

Thanks for taking me back to childhood and reminding me of those lost pets. Maybe I should check the Land of Missing Pets for Pebbles, Spanky, and Cracker.[/blockquote]

Congrats, Katie, on the win. Thanks, Emma, for taking the time out of your schedule to read the grid and send us your favorite.

Lurker’s favorite by Jennifer W

Like Flood, Jennifer chose Ado’s post and writes:

[blockquote]Wow. I’m still shaking my head and wiping tears away after reading Momalog’s post about meeting Czeslaw Milosz. I read it with my jaw dropped and kept saying, “Holy shit!” Being a writer and getting to meet Czeslaw Milosz is bound to be a life-changing experience. But the way Momalog wove in the story of going to Lithuania to meet her mother’s family, how she learned of her writerly roots and the many small yet hugely important details about her family just blew me away. Getting to know so much more about her grandfather via the words of his dear friend (Milosz!!!) must’ve been simply incredible.

I’m not related but I was transfixed. What a gift to be able to write like this, and what a gift for us to be in on Momalog’s journey to understanding her talent. Wowza.[/blockquote]

Congrats, Ado, on the two lurkers’ favorites. Thanks, Jen, for your enthusiastic support this week.

Hey, y’all, please make time to visit Jennifer at her blog Kvetch Mom. Her most recent post details the beginning of her cancer diagnosis, and it’s a must-read.

Popular vote by the entire Internet if the entire Internet is made up of 250 people

Hey there, Ado! Your post on meeting Mr. Milosz is a certified hit with the readers and voters of yeah write. It certainly had me on the edge of my weepiest seat, and so many others felt the same way. Thank you thank you for sharing and for being such a faithful part of yeah write from the very beginning one year ago.

Comment karma

Yeah write virgin lady goo goo gaga (ha, what a name) had a very funny post about mommy groups and playdates to which I happen to be quite allergic (groups, not funny posts). In comments, Cathy of Cathy’s Voice Now says:

[blockquote]We didn’t have playgroups way back in the day. But we did have a Mommy group from church. We put the kids in the room to play and we studied a book called You Can Be the Wife of a Happy Husband…some time later I became an alcoholic.[/blockquote]

Cathy celebrated 25 years of sobriety this year. I think of her matter-of-fact-ness about it all with nearly every one of my mid-morning cocktails. It’s hope for us all (okay, for me) that we’ll come out the other side alive and content. Congrats, Cathy, on your anniversary and on the karma. Does one get congratulated on karma? I’ll need the Buddhists of yeah write to give me a better catchphrase when you get a free moment. 

Win-win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most yellow star votes to the least. In the case of a tie, like if four blogs all got seven votes each, the thumbnails are additionally sorted by page views. 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 voting. And for making yeah write the most welcoming spot on the Interwebs for writers who blog and bloggers who write.

Yeah write #54 opens Tuesday.