GWC24: Meet The Competitors

Those brave, poor souls, who are about to enter the fire!

One For The Record Books

Between March 8th and March 22nd, I accepted applications to participate in this years’ edition of the Gibberish Writing Competition.

Last year, with only one week to prepare, twelve competitors flung themselves before my judgmental gaze to be considered for GWC23.

That was a tall order. TWELVE people, eminently worthy in their own right, wanted to participate in this bootcamp-style competition I cobbled together without much thought. Somehow I had to choose five, and disappointing seven people was awful.

I tell you all this just to set the stage. When I had twelve applicants, I struggled to make a decision, which I reiterated again and again was entirely subjective and not really based on anything but my own horse sense. Even in those nascent days of Notes, last July, it was clear that Fiction-Stack was a force and deeply talented.

This year, for GWC ‘24, we had TWENTY-NINE applications.

So when I tell you how stunned, honored, amazed, humbled, and frankly anxious this made me, I hope you understand the magnitude. I had to send twenty-four horrible emails to twenty-four talented writers and tell them that they did not make the final cut.

Now, lest we forget—not being selected does not mean they were bad writers. With a competition like this, by necessity, I cannot choose everyone even if I wanted to (which I did). To make it work for the competitors, and work for my excellent co-judge

Sara Dietz

, and work for me, we can only choose five. Yes, I enlisted the help of an anonymous panel of judges to help me make this decision. But I offered them no structure—all they could do was advise based on nothing but the 250 words alone. Ultimately the final decision came down to me, taking the applications, the stories, the judges, all into my brain soup, to be distilled into a decision for five talented competitors.

So before we get too far, I would like to highlight and recognize the twenty four applicants who had the courage to submit to this competition, who wrote 250 of their best words for consideration, who all are worthy reads in their own right, all of whom have less than 200 subscribers, all of whom are worth watching in the fiction space.

image found online

Let’s give a virtual round of applause to these twenty-four applicants who took a risk and put themselves out there.

Bri Heron

Bridget Riley

Chantal LaFortune

Dragon Writer Luc

Hazel Osborne

Jennie Robertson

JP Maulgue

Julie Adam

Ken W.

Mark Connolly

Matthew Christian

Michael S. Atkinson

Waybound

NJ

Prosopon

Randall Hayes

Sam Rake

SDG Lemaître

Sean Thomas McDonnell

Stephanie Loomis

S.L. Linton

Vince Wetzel

Walther Cantu

Willow Stonebeck

I have a “consolation prize” for them, if they choose to accept it, so it’s not all bad news for these writers—but more on that in a moment. I want to tell you about our Final Five.

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The Final Five

These five will compete against each other, yes, but also against themselves, over three successive challenges over the next month. It’s important to note: One will be named “winner”, but that does not mean the others will be “losers”. All twenty-nine applicants want to grow as writers, and while I couldn’t select all of them, these five worthy writers are going to push themselves to the limits, and we will see the fruit of that not just in this competition, but in their writing forward and beyond.

Let’s remember that this competition is not about finding who is “best”, but about challenging these writers to write better than they’ve ever written before. And you and I, the readers, will be awash in great writing!

So without further ado, which of these five writers will emerge as the winner of the 2024 Season of the Gibberish Writing Competition?

• Will it be

  Alice Meredith
  of
  A Teapot Full of Tales
  ? She’s written mostly short stories, but wants to push into longer fiction. Can she push herself to make deeper characters, and keep the stories meaningful?

• Will it be

  E.B. Howard
  of
  It's For A Story
  ? Will she be able to pull together all her plot threads and stick to the main story? Can her highly developed characters carry her to the title, or will she be able to develop new tools for the war-chest?

• What about

  Eric Falden
  of
  The Falden Spot
  ? His stories might feel true-to-life, but can he make his characters really shine?

• Perhaps it will be

  Hanna Delaney
  of
  A work of fiction
  ? She will surely find a creative twist on each challenge—but can she tell the story efficiently, without sacrificing the other judging criteria?

• Last but not least—maybe

  Hyun Woo Kim
  of
  Requests of Literary Exile
  ? He can make drama out of the smallest moment, but can his characters leap off the page?

Subscribe to them all to watch their stories unfold in real time over the next month! Read your favorite, read them all! Show your support, and let us know how you think they did!

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The Stage Is Set

So, there you have it. We have our five competitors, ready to take on the first challenge. The first challenge drops April 6th at 8:00am EST.

Here’s a reminder about the calendar for the competition:

• The first challenge announced April 6th

  • The final five will post their stories on April 10th at 11:00pm EST (scheduled to post at that time)

  • The results of the first challenge will be shared on April 13th

• The second challenge announced April 15th

  • The final five will post their stories on April 19th at 11:00pm EST

  • The results of the second challenge will be shared on April 22nd

• The third and final challenge will be announced on April 25th

  • The final five will post their stories on April 29th at 11:00pm EST

  • The results and the champion of the Gibberish Writing Competition 2024 will be announced on May 4th.

Follow Along!

For applicants who did not make it into the final five, or bystanders who want to challenge themselves to write their best fiction, I encourage all of you to follow this competition and try your own hands at the prompts! The prompts, like last year, will push you to do your best writing, to explore skills you didn’t know you had, and to venture into territory of craftsmanship you didn’t know you could achieve.

Remember I mentioned a consolation prize for the applicants? I am offering them free tickets to the Gibberish Feedback Party¹ which will take place after GWC ‘24 has concluded. This will be an opportunity for paid subscribers of either Gibberish or

Sara Dietz

’s

Blinking Blue Line

to receive competition-style feedback on their writing, without the hassle and stress of a competition! The applicants all have access to this without needing to become paid subscribers of either publication—and Sara has generously agreed to continue collaborating to help provide this feedback. More details on the Gibberish Feedback Party will come after the competition concludes!

And if all this anticipation doesn’t get you excited to start writing, then JUST WAIT TO SEE WHAT OUR COMPETITORS CREATE!

TUNE IN APRIL 6TH TO WATCH THIS COMPETITION BEGIN!

1. I am not good at names