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WINNERS ALL
Don’t Judge Me, But I’ll Judge You
How I Pick Contest Winners in Muddyum Writing Contests
I recently took part in the MuddyUm writing contest about failure. The judges were me and Kendra Sparkles, Stephanie Wilson, Rebecca A. Barrett, and Susan Brearley. Gary Chapin, the contest champion, gathered all our votes. The winners were the stories with the most votes. I wanted to share my process for picking my input.
To choose the fifth-place story, I wrote all the submission titles on Post-it notes and put them on the floor. My cat came over and laid on a Post-it. Hurrah, we have a winner: the fifth-place candidate. The cat has unfailing taste.
To choose the fourth-place story, I taped the story titles to plastic cups and played beer pong with a few friends. When I drank out of a cup for the fourth time, that was my fourth-place contender. That story was hilarious after four shots.
Third place was much easier. Putting the remaining titles on my wall, I threw darts until one of my darts hit the center of a posting. Yea. This was our third-place applicant. That story was on target.
I decided on second place after I numbered the stories and then counted the number of people running past my home jogging that morning. I picked the story that matched the number. The second-place entrant was a runner.
Skill and daring were used to choose the first-place winner. Putting on my James Bond outfit, I went out to the casino. The remaining stories were put on a roulette wheel. I spun the wheel, betting on 1 Black. 1 Black won, and it was my first-place story choice. I won money along with the winner.
As I turned my selections in to Gary, I was pleased with my picks. I told him I had a lot of fun being a judge and would not mind doing it again if he ran another contest.
I may actually read the stories next time to pick the winners.
