Year Three at yeah write begins today

How fortunate for us to have you here as we move into our third year of bloggers who write and writers who blog. In the lead up to this week, there have been fantastic stories, a spotlight on the best grid entries since our inception and plenty of prizes. We want to give you more of the good stuff. To encourage you to share your love for yeah write, we’re again giving away gift cards equalling one dollar for every grid entry, up to 50 entries, provided we meet the minimum of 30 entries. There are two gift cards, redeemable to your choice of online shop in the U.S. or Canada, up for grabs: one for the jury prize winner, and one for the crowd favourite. Will it be you? Hopefully you’ve been inspired to bring your best stuff and a friend or two.

A new family treasure to give as a gift or to keep for yourself

We know there were some disappointed yeah writers when we didn’t quite make it to 40 entries. We were short by just one entry – easily remedied, right? Let’s try again! Yeah write supporter Jacqueline Bryant Campbell has generously donated one $60 gift card toward any doll or custom design in her studio. The non-ballerina dolls are $60, and you can choose hair color, skin tone, clothing style or even send Jacq a favorite t-shirt or fabric and she’ll work her magic and dress your new treasure with it.

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• If yeah write #105 reaches 40 on the grid, anyone involved will be eligible for the drawing for the gift card
• On the challenge grid? You’re in the drawing
• On the speakeasy grid? You’re in the drawing
• Not on either grid, but you’re reading, commenting, sharing or voting? Leave us a comment on any post this week letting us know you’re hanging out, and you’re in the drawing
• Sent a yeah write virgin? Let us know who belongs to you. You’re in the drawing
• As long as the grids get to 40 this week, your name is in the hat

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Let’s start our third year off with the fullest grid possible.

Want your own supporting subscription?

Just in case the chances of winning a dollar per entry in gift card loot wasn’t enough for you to recruit your blogging friends to yeah write, we’re keeping open our standard offer: If we hit 50 entries to the challenge grid this week and you’ve recruited a yeah write virgin to the challenge grid, you’ll be eligible for a random drawing for our 12-month, $10 a month supporting subscription donated by one of our yeah write editors. At that level, you would receive at your request:

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• a wet and sloppy kiss on the mouth from your yeah write editor of choice
• a text link in selected weekly sponsor highlight posts
• a custom editorial on one selected yeah write challenge grid entry (worth $40 USD)
• a quick and dirty evaluation of 12 planned submissions to the challenge grid, an average of one planned submission each month, before the weekly challenge grids open
• an evaluation of your blog itself on content and design with clear direction on what’s working and what can be improved (worth countless USD)

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Challenge v. speakeasy

The grids open Tuesday, and the challenge grid is where we want to see your personal essays and traditional blog anecdotes. Choose moments and stories that will show off your writer’s voice. Submit your short fiction and poetry over at the speakeasy, where they’ll be sharing in the celebrations. Crowd favourite winners there will receive a copy of Best American Short Stories 2012. In the mood for anything goes? On Friday, the moonshine grid has just what you need. 

Grab your badges

Badges for both the challenge grid and the speakeasy are now available in the sidebar, right underneath the “be the first to know” yeah write email blast subscription box. They contain the codes needed to satisfy the backlink requirement of the Inlinkz app. Be sure to paste the code into the html-view of your post before publishing. Your post cannot be dated earlier than today.

Submission guidelines and FAQ still apply

Anecdotes contain a beginning, middle and end. Personal essays contain commentary on the human condition from your perspective. Your yeah write editors may no longer be moderating posts for quality, but we will be monitoring. Any self-promotional or commercial posts will be removed without warning or notification. Eep! Please keep your word limit to 500 words.  Never, ever forget your “so what.”  Check the sidebar under “quick links” for all you need to know. If you get lost, email us.

Yeah write #105 weekly writing challenge opens Tuesday. Open grid, open vote, open everything. Bring your best stuff and invite a few friends to join us as we enter into another year of celebrating the small blogger’s best community on the web.