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.
I didn't enter, either. But I know that Jimmy, Emilie, Helen, and Victoria did. The first 3 have their stories in "shared work" on this site. (And are all well worth reading.) I've read Victoria's submission (which isn't as bad as she makes out on Emilie's Q&A (the one just before this one).
I listed the rest of you because you're active here, because you write well (in "shared work" and/or on this forum), and because your names stick in my memory.
I actually think that Jen Falkner deserved to tie for first prize. But if you Google her name, the #1 result is her Twitter acct. And that's FULL of competitions that she's entered, is thinking of entering, or recommends on her tweets.
She promotes herself and her writing, she enters as many competitions as she can. And that's all very laudable. We should all follow her example...
But when she joins a social network which promotes mutual support among writers JUST to enter another competition, then drops it like a hot potato as soon as she's won yet another trophy to nail to her wall... that seems to me to fly in the face of the essence of rule 1.
Yes very interesting. Although I didn't enter either, Wilhelmina, it was before I joined W&A. I'm honoured to be in the list of names you'd recognise though :)
Clare
Very interesting observations, Wilhelmina.
For my part I didn't enter. I didn't find the image at all inspiring, I'm afraid.
All the best
Penny