SCN is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 Blog Post Competition.
Click each link below to read the entry.
1st: Lorinda Boyer for Starting Again
Lorinda Boyer is a Pacific Northwest native who spends her days writing, reading, and exploring with her wife Sandy and dog, Mollie. Lorinda’s journey through fundamentalist Christianity, sexual addiction, and eventual self-acceptance unfolds in her memoir, Straight Enough. More than a coming-out story this is a coming-into story—coming into an authentic life and self.
2nd: Julie McGue for Connections Matter
Julie Ryan Mcgue is an American author. Her award-winning memoir, Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family and Belonging, released in May 2021. Julie's work has appeared in the Story Circle Network Journal, Brevity, Imprint, Adoption.com, Lifetime Adoption, Adoption & Beyond, and Severance Magazine. Her personal essays have appeared in two anthologies: Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis and Real Women Write: Seeing Through Their Eyes. She is currently working on a second memoir and a collection of essays.
3rd: Gretchen Staebler for Connection to Home at Life’s End
Gretchen Staebler is a Pacific Northwest native transplanted to the southeast for 36 years. In 2012, she returned to her childhood home and fell in love with her corner of the country again. She is a grandmother, a storycatcher, a teacher, an attention payer, a hiker, a back roads wanderer—and a caregiver survivor and ally. Check out her website (and her memoir, Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver) at www.gretchenstaebler.com.
Congratulations!
And many thanks to all who entered this year's competition, and to the judges who read every entry with thoughtful attention.
The 2023 competition is now closed. Watch this page for the 2024 competition.
Whether you’re a seasoned blogger or new to the craft, this is an opportunity to showcase your blog. We’re looking for posts written to a topic while remaining consistent with the style and format of your blog.
Open only to members of Story Circle Network. To join us, go here.
2023 Topic: CONNECTION
“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
Brené Brown
“Since I was a very small child, I've had a kind of reverence for the past, and I felt a very intimate connection with it.”
Hilary Mantel
“I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us.”
Alice Hoffman
“We will have to give up the hope that, if we try hard, we somehow will always do right by our children. The connection is imperfect. We will sometimes do wrong.”
Judith Viorst“We need to bridge our sense of loneliness and disconnection with a sense of community and continuity even if we must manufacture it from our time on the Web and our use of calling cards to connect long distance. We must “log on” somewhere, and if it is only in cyberspace, that is still far better than nowhere at all.”
Julia Cameron
The post should be fresh and original, rich in detail, polished and carefully proofread, relevant to women’s lives, and responsive to the topic. Your blog should have a clear overall theme, be attractive, engaging, and consistently updated. Posts published on your blog between March 1, 2022 and February 25, 2023 are eligible to enter.
A quote relevant to the topic (one shown above or one of your choosing) must be included in the post as an epigraph and the post must grow out of the quote.
Prizes of $100, $75, and $50 will be awarded to the top three entries. The first-place post will be published in the Story Circle Journal and all winning blogs will be featured on SCN’s website.
Open for submissions from January 1 to February 25, 2023.
The competition is open only to members. Time to renew? Go to https://www.storycircle.org/registration/.
Awards
One prize of $100, one prize of $75, and one prize of $50. The first-place post will be published in the Story Circle Journal and links to all winning blogs will be featured on SCN's website. Upon the judges' recommendation, other entries may be published in later issues of the Journal and in other SCN print or online publications. An award may be withheld if, in the opinion of the judges, no entry achieves the expected standard. The judges' decision is final.
Rules
- You must be a dues-paying member of Story Circle Network to enter. (To join, use our online membership form.)
- The $25 entry fee can be paid online or by check.
- One entry per member.
- To be eligible, your entry must be unpublished (other than on your blog, of course). We define a "published" piece as one that has been reviewed and accepted by an editor, either for a print or an online publication.
- A quote relevant to the topic (one shown above or another of your choosing) must be included in the post as an epigraph and the post must grow out of the quote.
- Each entry must be titled, and no longer than 750 words.
- Story Circle Network does not provide a platform for targeted political or religious argument, and such entries are not eligible.
- Story Circle Network does not accept work created (in whole or in part) using Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated text. Submissions found to be crafted using computer-generated text of any kind will be disqualified.
- Winners' posts must be available for publication in the Journal.
- You must submit your entry to us electronically by using our online form [see below] and include a link to your blog.
- By submitting your blog post, you are giving Story Circle the right to publish it in the Journal, in its other print publications, and on its website. However, authors retain copyright.
Criteria and Judging
The post you submit should be fresh and original, rich in detail, polished and carefully proofread, relevant to women’s lives, and responsive to the topic. Your blog should have a clear overall theme, be attractive, engaging, and consistently updated. See the 2022 winning posts below for examples.
2022 1st place: Stephanie Rafflelock for "We Matter At Every Age"
2022 2nd place: Melissa Carro for "The Conductor's Baton"
2022 3rd place: Pat Bean for "Then Being Then"
Deadline
Posts published on your blog between March 1, 2022 and February 25, 2023 are eligible to enter. We will be open for submissions from January 1 to February 25, 2023.
Notification
Winners will be notified when the judging is concluded.
How to Enter
Contest entries should be made via the form below (only available while contest is open).
