Post #159 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Gratitude: Memoir Contest Winners Announced
Happy Thanksgiving. We hope you have a day filled with family, friends, love and hope.
Kendra and I begin by expressing our gratitude for you, our readers and contributors and commenters. You’ve even shared Women’s Memoirs website with your friends, bringing us an enlarged community. We do these blog posts for you and appreciate your kind words and suggestions.
Let’s turn to this month’s contest. Since Thanksgiving is the focus of November, we chose the topic of gratitude. The contest brought in a large number of entries. It seems that many of us turn to thoughts of gratitude and this memoir contest was one way to express the thoughts. As you will find in our selected winning stories, gratitude comes in many shapes and forms. From the contest entries, we’ve chosen the best for you and hope you enjoy reading them over the coming months as we publish them.
Today, we’re announcing our memoir contest winners of our November 2011 memoir writing contest and publishing the Grand Prize winner. We’ll schedule the publication of all other winners as soon as we can.
Please return at noon today when we publish our Grand Winner.
[Note: At 3 p.m., we’re posting the prices of our first-ever Black Friday sale. We have many distinctive items that are perfect gifts for you and for friends. The sale begins one minute after midnight Pacific Time on Friday. This is a two-day sale that ends at midnight on Saturday. You can check out the items now — here’s the link — and then return after 3 today to see the special prices.]
Did you submit a story but didn’t win this month? Kendra and I want you to know that we appreciate your contest entry. Even deciding to submit is a big step. Then writing and emailing it to us is even more significant and for many takes us out of our comfort zone. You should congratulate yourself and work even more on your next entry. Be sure to polish it. We hope you will enter one of our future contests. There is one more topic in this year’s contests. For the complete list, go to: http://WomensMemoirs.com/contests.
Following is the complete list of memoir contest winners for our Gratitude topic.
MEMOIR CONTEST WINNERS
GRAND WINNER
Linda Lohman for My Blessing
Return at noon today to read Linda’s story.
GRATITUDE FOR FAMILY
First Place
Irene Burden for Letter to Jack
Honorable Mentions
(in alphabetical order)
Sara Etgen-Baker for Vertumnus
Kathleen Hewitt for Cloak of Gratitude
Betty Rosenstein for Two Thanksgivings
Amanda Tessler for Jesus in the Glove Compartment
GRATITUDE IS EVERGREEN
We focus on Thanksgiving when we think about expressing gratitude. But, of course, gratitude is an evergreen emotion, always appropriate and always welcome. The following memoir contest winners shared their experiences with gratitude across a range of situations.
First Place
Maureen Wlodarczyk for The Angels of Sligo General
Honorable Mentions
(in alphabetical order)
Cindy Briggs for Turkey Jerky
Pamila Florea for Itaewon’s Sunny Corner
Francine Garson for The Turkey Hat
Holly Senior for Redundance Wreck to…?
GRATITUDE FOR UNCOMMON SISTERS
Tie for First Place
(in alphabetical order)
Jessica Wild for The Hand of God
Kelly Wright for My Big Sis
Congratulations to these memoir winners. We’re sure you’ll enjoy reading their stories. Visit this site at noon (PDT) when the Grand Winner’s story will be published.
