Y’all, I know I’m supposed to write something chirpy and exciting, but the LOW temperature here last night was around 90 degrees (around 30 Celsius for folks living in countries with reasonable measurement standards) and frankly I think I’ve sweated all the words out of myself. Whether you’re here in the heat with me or cursing the winter cold with our editor Asha, these commonalities of misery (and finding the little joys in it, like the sensation of cool water sluicing over your face) make great essay fodder. So it’s good news for you that registration opens today for YeahWrite’s 21st Super Challenge. We’re taking it back to nonfiction this time around, with two rounds of prompted 48-hour essays.
Each round will have a specific topic and/or prompt style. Writers will be separated into groups and each group will receive a different prompt. All groups will respond to that prompt for each round, and each participant—whether or not they move on to the next round—receives professional feedback before the next round begins. And don’t worry: our judges commit to reading a full group, so there’s no chance of you getting the one low-scoring judge in your group!
What’s a Super Challenge, though?
All of the editors at YeahWrite are writers too. That’s why when we sat down and started brainstorming ideas for how to run a writing competition that we’d want to pay to enter we ended up with three bullet points: cash prizes, great feedback, and getting that great feedback in time to learn from it.
Every writer in our Super Challenge gets substantive feedback on their work from every judge who reads it before the next round of the competition starts. That means you’ll have a pretty good idea what you need to work on before going into the next round. It also means that nobody walks away with nothing. We know nothing’s worse as a writer than a blank rejection, a “your work didn’t make the cut” with no idea why.
As much as we do love feedback, we also love cash prizes. And writers. We love writers. So what better way to combine the two than to say more writers means more money? Once registration closes and we count up the entry fees, we split the pot: half of the fees we receive go directly into the prize pot. That means the more friends you convince to sign up with you, the bigger the prizes you could win! At a minimum, we award $150 for first place, $100 for second, and $50 for third—guaranteed!
What makes our competition different?
YeahWrite’s creative nonfiction community fits into the space between “I blog, but I don’t know if anyone reads it” and “I am a memoirist.” So the Super Challenge is more than just a competition: you can think of it as a workshop for your creative nonfiction, too, pushing you to write better, faster (harder?). There are plenty of places online that are looking to publish personal essays, but it’s hard to find information on how to craft a personal essay, especially if you’ve got some experience under your belt. Our judges are professional editors and writers who make a point to give you the targeted, personalized feedback you need to really polish a fun-to-write competition essay for later publication, as many of our participants have gone on to do.
What are you waiting for? Check out our prompts, schedule, and more at Super Challenge #19!
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.
