Fun and Games
The Winners of the November MWC Contest!
The Judges Were Overwhelmed with Laughter
Our cheeks hurt. Our flaccid stomach muscles ache. We don’t have enough tissue boxes in our homes to wipe away all the tears of joy and laughter.
And that’s just after we stop laughing about Andrew Rodwin, Emoji Whisperer’s new earrings, and Amy Sea’s lunch lady glow.
It is true that we had some fun and an amazing time reading the stories everyone submitted for the contest.
Sorry to say no one won BINGO in November. We hope you’ll keep trying. It would be fun to give away some swag.
We had four themes, and a winner in each theme. And a grand prize winner.
Unlike Medium, we are actually going to tell you the criteria we used to judge this contest, and will use for all future contests over the next 13 months.
Four criteria were used.
- Originality of concept.
- Laughter factor.
- Memorable lines.
- Just damned good writing.
I think what stood out for all of us is that everyone is funny in their own way. We’re all looking through different funny goggles and it made reading all your stories delightful.
Some stories were filled with zingers. Others took us on a narrative journey with many punchlines. A few did a great job using crazy words from the bingo game.
Overall, we’re left impressed and in awe of the talent we’re immersed in daily. But in the end, we had to choose.
The winner of the Laziness category was Matthew Thiele’s piece.
The winner of the Life category was Gary Chapin.
The winner of the Exit category was Steve Wyatt.
The Night I Didn’t Embarrass Myself IN Bed
The true story I couldn’t hide from any longer
medium.com
The winner of the Claustrophobia category was a grain of infinity.
These were the finalists.
And the grand prize winner of the $6.00 was —
Steve Wyatt with his story about that night he didn’t embarrass himself in bed. It hit all our criteria. As a panel of judges trying to decide what we could all relate to, we came to realize that as humor writers, we probably all were not the most popular people in the room growing up. Except for Sarah Paris. She was always popular. But aside from Sarah, despite not being the first picks on the softball team, we all knew how to joke and laugh, and find our tribe of funny people. And here we are on Medium, doing the same thing.
Thank you for playing the game. Let’s do it again. Looking forward to the December contest entries!
Next month’s contest!
Susan B has been the Cap’n of MuddyUm since the ship was built.
