On fire

Not literally, as in living in Oregon during this 114F/45C heatwave, but figuratively, as in the fires of love, or “your story is on fire.” We are feeling inappropriately smug about this prompt combo, which yielded one of our best crops of final-round stories ever, and you should feel appropriately smug about your writing, no matter where you placed. Because that’s the thing that’s wonderful and terrible about competitions; not everyone can win, even if some of the scores were so close we had to read back through the rules to see what we were supposed to do about ties!

The judges’ results are in and tallied and we’re ready to announce the winners of our Super Challenge! Winners, you’ll also get an email confirming your details so that we can send your prizes to you. But whether you won or ran-up (is that a word?) or didn’t place this round, you made it this far and you should consider taking your feedback and finding a great home for your essay where the world can read it—even if that’s just on your blog (shoot us a link or post it in the coffeehouse on Facebook or Discord, we’d love to give other YeahWriters a chance to see!).

We hope you’ve had as much fun writing as we had coming up with this prompt set. It’s always a challenge to come up with ideas flexible enough to give you the room to express yourself creatively but tight enough to challenge and inspire you. Let us know how we’re doing!

Once again, anything that went right is entirely due to our admin team’s untiring work behind the scenes, and anything you hate is probably my fault. Unless it’s your feedback, because hating feedback for a month or two and then sighing and working with it is every writer’s prerogative and destiny. And unless it’s the “romance” half of the prompt, because that was absolutely not me, you’ve met me, right?

But speaking of only one winner….

I’ll quit chattering. I know why you’re here. So with no further ado, here we go:

Third Place
$125

MM Schreier
Tick-Tock

Honorable Mention:

• Jen Mierisch – Moonlight and Roses
• EJ Sidle – The Mechanist

Runners-up:

(in alphabetical order)

• Melinda Hagenson
• Laila Miller
• Alex Otto
• Chrissie Rohrman
• C. M. Rourke
• Johannah Simon
• Gail A. Webber

Congratulations again to everyone who entered. Hopefully you’re finding your feedback useful and relevant! If you’re mad at your feedback right now, try walking away from it. Everything about your story is fresh and feels personal, and that’s a hard time to hear feedback. Set a reminder and look at it again in a month or so, or get a trusted reader to help you make the connections or see if it’s fair, even if you don’t like it or disagree with a decision or suggestion. In the meantime…

Wait, wait, there’s more!

Writers, if you don’t have your feedback, please send us an email at superchallenge@yeahwrite.me, ’cause that email should have reached you on Wednesday.

Now that this round of the competition is over, you’re free to post your work anywhere on the Internet you like, or take our judges’ suggestions and rework your submission to send on to other venues.

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me