I write stuff for kids...and muse on writing, children's books, and the publishing industry in general

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Winners - Second Crusader Challenge (plus a heads-up on my Third Crusader Challenge)

I'm amazed at the entries in this Second Crusader Challenge - they were so creative!!! 100 words, flash fiction piece, each piece to start with the phrase "The goldfish bowl teetered," and out of that we got humans in goldfish bowls, killer goldfish, goldfish killers, were-goldfish, love scenes, magic scenes, aliens, and killer goldfish bowls! And that's only a few of them.

A huge thanks goes to these legendary people who helped me judge entries:

Deniz Bevan
Catherine Johnson
Misha Gericke
Michelle Merrill
Kerri Cuev
Callie Leuck

FYI, Callie isn't a Crusader, but she had so much fun doing the Challenge she volunteered to help. Thanks so much Callie! Make sure you visit her blog and follow along if you haven't already.

None of the judges were responsible for judging their own entries, and because of this they were able to take part in the Challenge too. I asked each judge to prepare a list of their five favorite entries, then narrow it down to two finalists in the judging round. Here are the names they gave me (in no particular order), and congratulations to all these entrants for such stand-out posts:

Alison Stevens
Jeanne Kraus
Brooke R. Busse
Cally Jackson
Margo Kelly
Bess Weatherby
LA Colvin
Charity Bradford
Lisa Potts
LadyJai
Rebecca Dupree
Sandra Ulbrich Almazan

As you can imagine, it was SOOOO hard to pick one winner and one runner-up out of these awesome entries! I managed to do it in the end - I just couldn't go past the originality and creativity of these two in particular. Though I wish I could give more prizes, 'cause there were some seriously fabulous entries out there.

Here are the final results...

Runner-up: Sandra Ulbrich Almazan (Prize: interview on Rach Writes... OR a $35 gift certificate from C.A. Marshall, depending on the winner's choice)

Winner: Bess Weatherby (Prize: choice of interview on Rach Writes... OR a $35 gift certificate from C.A. Marshall PLUS the winner's badge in your color choice)

A huge congratulations to both of you!!! Email me at rachael[dot]harrie[at]gmail[dot]com to claim your prize :)

But...I haven't finished yet. I had a chat with Mr. Random.org, and he picked two awesome Crusaders from the list of Challenge entrants to win a query critique from yours truly. So congratulations go to:

J.C. Martin

AND

Nicole Ducleroir

Woot! Shoot me an email J.C. and Nicole, and we'll talk deets :)

Third Crusader Challenge

I'll be holding my Third (and final) Crusader Challenge on Friday, April 22nd. The theme of the Challenge will be related to the letter S, so A-Z Challenge entrants can combine both posts together if they wish to enter my Third Crusader Challenge as well.

I'll post the Challenge on Friday, April 15th, and you'll have a week to come up with your entry. All entries should be posted on Friday, April 22. As soon as you've posted your entry, pop back to Rach Writes and leave the direct link to your entry in the Linky Link tool, which I'll include in my April 22nd post.

Can't wait to see what you come up with.

38 comments:

Alison Pearce Stevens said...

Congratulations to the winners! This was a lot of fun, Rach, thanks for doing it. And looking forward to the next one!

Sylvia said...

Congratulations, winners! It was a really fun challenge!

Anonymous said...

Congrats to the winners. It was great fun reading them all :O)

Denise Covey said...

Congrats to everyone who entered - there were so many. Special congrats to the finalists and kudos to the winners. Great challenge, great writers.

Looking forward to the next one.

Denise<3

Tracy said...

Congrats to the winners!!

I am going to put the 15th on my outlook calendar now. I've managed to miss the first two challenges, I won't let it happen again!

Unknown said...

This was awesome! Thanks Rach! And my first competition I was considered a finalist! YaY!


Congrats to the winners!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations winners!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations winners!

Bess Weatherby said...

Oh goodness I'm so excited!!! I can't believe the killer-goldfish bowl won. I legitimately thought I just freaked everyone (including myself) out! Thanks Rachel! I will email you today!

L.A. Colvin said...

Congrats to the winners and the runner ups. This challenge was soooo fun. I freakin LOVE this crusade.

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

Congratulations to Bess and the other finalists! I'm very honored by the responses to my lizard restaurant critic!

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

Thanks also to Rachael and the judges!

PT Dilloway said...

I agree, Bess's story was awesome!

Cherie Reich said...

Congratulations to the winners! The challenge was so much fun. I look forward to the next one.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to everybody who participated with a fishbowl story. This one was fun. It was interesting how so many of the people who commented on my challenge story focused on one particular element (the beer mug) and interpreted it a slightly different way than I'd mean.

Will Burke said...

It was a lot of fun, and a great excercise in editing! That's all the prize I need.

Charity Bradford said...

Congratulations Bess and Sandra! I agree this was a great challenge. I loved that it was short and to the point. Great job everyone!

J.L. Campbell said...

Congrats to the winners. Beautiful fishbowl, Rach.

Heather Hellmann said...

Congratulations to the winners!

Summer Ross said...

There were so many amazing stories for the challenge Rach! Congrats to the winners! And thank you and the volunteer judges for all your hard work!

Anonymous said...

Congrats to all the finalists and the Winners! You rock!

Callie Leuck said...

Thanks for the shout-out, Rach. :) I had a great time reading all the entries, too. Very creative group here!

Carol Riggs said...

Woo, congrats to the winners. Most of these were ones I had really liked when reading them, too. :) This was a fun Challenge!

Zan Marie said...

Congratulations to the winners! I'm afraid I didn't get past rereading the first four words of the challenge ten times and realized my head was empty, so I'm really impressed by people who can write flash fiction.

Michelle Merrill said...

I can't wait for the next challenge! Congrats to the winners :)

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Congratulations to the winners and thanks for lining up with the A to Z Challenge - we're past 800 participants now!

Anonymous said...

Congrats to the winners!

Michael Di Gesu said...

Congrats to all the winners!

Hart Johnson said...

Very cute winners. Congrats to them! And thanks for making the 3rd compatible with A to Z!

Heather said...

Congrats to all the Crusaders! And congrats to you too! I sent you an email. Will announce officially tomorrow on my blog.

Unknown said...

Congrats, all! There were some truly awesome entries!

Lisa Potts said...

Congrats to both of the winners! Looking forward to the next challenge!

Alleged Author said...

Yay for the winners! I'll be interested to see what your next challenge is when you post it.

Trisha said...

Major congrats to all the winners and the finalists! :D This was a really fun challenge.

Unknown said...

Congrats to the winners! Looking forward to the S challenge :-)

Regina said...

Congrats to all the winners! How amazing. I will be making my way around to read all of their posts soon. I was gone on vacation with no internet access. Yuck! Totally shut off. It really wasn't a vacation (but it was supposed to be). I did get some writing done and some reading so Yeah for me.

Hope your doing well! *Hugs*

Deniz Bevan said...

Congratulations to all the winners! And thanks Rach for hosting such an awesome challenge.

J.C. Martin said...

W00t! Just saw this! Glad I popped by! Emailing you now! thanks!

Related Posts with Thumbnails