I have to admit that I was surprised when I read the shortlist for the winners of the Firewords short story competition, 2016. Not a single name that I recognised from this web-site. No Lorraine Swoboda, no Helen Jones, no Jimmy Hollis i Dickson, no Emilie van Damm, no Clare Williams, no Victoria Fielding, no Penny Gadd, no Paul Garside... well, NOBODY that I recognised.
The rules state that
"No purchase necessary, but entrants must be registered on www.writersandartists.co.uk"
Now, I realise that this might have been a tactic by W&As to attract new, quality membership. And it seems to have worked! Except for ONE little detail...
Let's look at that shortlist:
The Visit by Toni Allen
Last Man Standing by Jen Falkner
After The Dark by James Hatton
Stars by Liam Hogan
Homeland by Katherine Mezzacappa
A Mother Whale Lifts Her Head by Jeanne Panfley
A Good Thing by Megan Parker
Mountain Ash by Nicole Pearson
The Man With No Shadow by Stephanie Percival
The Seventh Sense by Dee Takemoto
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I have taken the trouble of carrying out a search on this site of those members. In order not to bore you, I will not name them one by one and recite their statistics. It's a LOT easier than that. Of those ten members, 8 share the following traits:
a) They are all Level 0.
b) None of them has uploaded an avatar.
c) None of them has bothered to give ANY information on their profiles.
d) None of them has "shared works" on this site.
e) I would guess - though I have no proof - that none of them has ever taken an active part on this web-site, aside from registering in order to submit to this competition.
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Furthermore, I have googled some of the names. Some searches have resulted in typical generic "find out about Bloofah Hambroughlingham on LinkIn". some are already published writers. One name is that of a character on a television series.
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Now to the 2 exceptions to the above list:
Jeanne Panfley (first runner-up) is not a member of this site.
Jen Falkner (tied for first prize) is not a member of this site.
Now, since you HAD to be registered on this site in order to submit to this competition, and since the winners were to be notified by e-mail, I can only conclude that J&J did sign up, but as soon as they'd won their prizes, they buggered off, leaving all bona fide, active members of this site empty-handed.
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Something is rotten, I think, in Denmark.
Back at you, Paul: Are you going to submit to StrangerInAStrangeLand? We won't kowtow to famous names! As W wrote on Clare's recent Q&A, a 4yo might win the prize.
Please read Clare's Q&A and W's reply... and WRITE something for a good cause!
Hi, Paul!
The judges were 2 staffers from Firewords magazine. It's lucky that there wasn't a submission fee, or I'd really feel burned!
It wasn't sour grapes in Wilhelmina's case, since she didn't enter. She's kind (aka biased) enough to say that my entry is better than 2 of the 3 winners... And she went a bit overboard, I'm afraid, by leaving a blistering review of the runner-up on the winner-announcement page. I do love the woman, but I wish that she wouldn't embarrass me like that!
At least there's a silver lining to the cloud: my Q&A has encouraged several contestants to post their entries on "shared work" and there are some jewels to be read!
I almost didn't reply to this because people say sour grapes. However, as I have not submitted since I realised a couple of years back that what you say is exactly right, and one year what was supposed to be a story was won by a very bad poem. but there you go.
Professionalism raises its ugly head and people who need some encouragement are left again in the cold. So it can't be sour grapes from me.
By the way, who was the judge, or judges this time?
Disappointed Paul G