Vocal Acrostic Challenge Winners
Official Results for an Unofficial Challenge
This past month has been a bit of a wild ride! I've wrapped up the end of my ninth year teaching middle school, published a 9,000 word Vocalite Manifesto, and hosted my second unofficial challenge on Vocal!
The purpose of this Challenge was to celebrate Vocal and all the talented creators here while also highlighting some need for change on the platform! I'm very excited about the Leaderboard changes that have been made and I'm hopefully optimistic about more changes to come!
Vocalite Manifesto Update: I have moved my Manifesto Monday to June 9th! I will be reaching out to Vocal to suggest any changes that are popular on the Manifesto poll. If you've considered filling it out, but haven't yet, you have a little bit more time and I will include the poll a the bottom of the winner's list!
Now let's focus on the winners and prizes for the acrostic challenge! Although this is my second time hosting a challenge, it's actually my first time judging one. And I now realize just how wise I was in outsourcing the judging on the last one! You all really delivered some amazing acrostic poems and I am incredibly grateful to everyone who participated! And yet at the same time all your wonderful contributions made this judging process extremely difficult!
I had hoped that by creating the categories it would help me recognize a lot of different types of acrostics. And though it definitely helped a lot, I still found myself totally stuck trying to determine winners.
So how was I to choose from over 50 entries that were all so great? Well I did my darnedest, but I ended up having to adjust my approach a little bit:
- I split the Literal Life into two categories (In the Moment & Big Picture), because I felt like I was comparing apples to oranges.
- I've got some ties for 3rd place in Lighthearted Laughs and Enlightening Literature.
- I've got Honorable Mentions in each category.
- Then I also added a group of 10 Vocal specific Honorable Mentions (Community Champions) that I wanted to highlight because of their clever criticisms or cheery celebrations of our beloved platform.
- Lastly within the Community Champion Honorable Mentions I added a bonus prize for my favorite critical and celebratory pieces.
I know! I'm a terrible judge! I promise to outsource again for the next one! This is really giving me some empathy for the Vocal Challenge judges. Even with adding all these prizes I'm very aware that I'm still failing to recognize some great entries. So even though your judge kind of sucks I hope everyone enjoyed the challenge! I certainly enjoyed reading all of the entries!
Prizes:
1st Places - $10
2nd Places - $5
3rd Places - $2
Honorable Mentions - $1
Clever Critic HM Bonus - $1
Cheery Celebration HM Bonus - $1
I went over my $52 budget a bit...so we've got $90 in prizes!
Lighthearted Laughs
1st Place - "Vow: I Will Write Today" by Laura DePace
2nd Place - "Inside Joke" by Cristal Beikd
3rd Place - "The Ballad of the Banned Baritone" by Tim Carmichael
3rd Place - "Innocent, Even When Proven Guilty" by Cathy Holmes
Honorable Mention - "Valerie's Dilemma" by Mother Combs
Honorable Mention - "Victor" by Susan Payton
Enlightening Literature
1st Place - "Literal Love" by Rachel Deeming
2nd Place - "Countless Brilliances" by Gabriel Huizenga
3rd Place - "Just Visting" by D.J. Reddall
3rd Place - "As I Infiltrate" by Maja
Honorable Mention - "Afire" by Heather Hubler
Honorable Mention - "Heartbeat" by Marilyn Glover
Literal Life (In the Moment)
1st Place - "She Will Speak Loudly, Because I Did" by Carolina Borges
2nd Place - "Audio" by Kendall Defoe
3rd Place - "VOCAL (Not Really)" by Cathy Ben-Ameh
Honorable Mention - "Piano Moments" by Antoni De'Leon
Literal Life (Big Picture)
1st Place - "This Velvet Revolt" by Paul Stewart
2nd Place - "Freedom expressed - via written word" by Lamar Wiggins
3rd Place - "This Is Life" by Donna Fox
Honorable Mention - "Normalization" by Matthew Fromm
Top 10 Community Champions Honorable Mentions
Honorable Mention & Clever Critic Bonus - "Vocal's Algorithmic Jabberwocky" by Dalma Ubitz
Honorable Mention & Cheerful Celebrator Bonus - "Who We Are And Why We Do It" by Shirley Belk
Honorable Mention - "The Word Thief" by JBaz
Honorable Mention - "V.O.C.A.L." by Kelli Sheckler-Amsden
Honorable Mention - "Vocal Voices" by Katherine D. Graham
Honorable Mention - "Vocal!" by Katarzyna Popiel
Honorable Mention - "VOCAL - Acrostic Poem" by L.C. Schäfer
Honorable Mention - "V.O.C.A.L." by Susan Fourtané
Honorable Mention - "Enjoy the Feast!" by Angie the Archivist
Honorable Mention - "Love Across Vocal" by Leslie Writes
Again, thank you to everyone who crafted an entry for this challenge! You helped spread the word and inspire change. For that I am beyond grateful. And congratulations to all the winners! I am so honored by your amazing contributions that made this challenge a roaring success!
All this tipping might take me a bit, but winners should receive their prizes by Friday at the latest! I am off to catch up on reads and I have an absolute mountain to climb, so wish me luck! Cheers, friends!
About the Creator
D.K. Shepard
Character Crafter, Witty Banter Enthusiast, World Builder, Unpublished novelist...for now
Fantasy is where I thrive, but I like to experiment with genres for my short stories. Currently employed as a teacher in Louisville.
Keep reading
More stories from D.K. Shepard and writers in Writers and other communities.
Vocal Acrostic Challenge
Hello Vocalites! I'm looking to celebrate reaching 5,000 reads by hosting a little challenge! I also have another motivation in hosting this challenge. I've recently been working on a project with the publication of my six part Vocalite Manifesto. And the final piece requires input from you! Yes, YOU!
By D.K. Shepard8 months ago in Writers
Comments (41)
So grateful for the win at DK! Thank you to the hosts for a wonderful event, and major congratulations to my fellow winners!
UPDATE: And then there were 3... Haven't been able to award Tips to the following creators yet, but all other winners should have received their prizes. Laura DePace Gabriel Huizenga Maja I will reach out again to Vocal to see if there's still a glitch at play!
Well deserved Leaderboard win!🥳
Circling back to say congrats DK!! Love that this got first on the leaderboard this week, such a great for us to repay you for hosting the challenge!!
Wooohooooo congratulations on your Leaderboard placement! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Here to say congrats on your first placement in the weekly leaderboards AND to say I'm so happy to see this up there. I've been away, but the next time you host a challenge, count me in!! <3
DK - I was wondering if you could tell me what is wrong when I published a story today, and it doesn't show up on my profile? It just isn't there? The name of the story is "Just one more Day"
What a great turnout! Thanks for the honorable mention. This was fun!!! 💙
What a magnificent conclusion to a BRILLIANT challenge - it is so amazing to see how many folks you've inspired to participate in this challenge and in sharing their voices regarding issues in the community. Thank you for being a pillar of creativity, integrity, and friendship on this site, D.K.! (And I am so honored to have placed!!)
UPDATE: I've contacted Vocal support because for some reason I have no option to send Tips to the following Creators: Mother Combs Laura DePace Kelli Sheckler-Amsden Shirley Belk Gabriel Huizenga Maja JBaz Heather Hubler D.J. Reddall Marilyn Glover Katherine D. Graham Katarzyna Popiel Kendall Defoe L.C. Schäfer Lamar Wiggins
Thanks for the honourable mention- I am honoured.
Wow! Thank you so much! And congratulations to everyone! 🎉 This was a really nice challenge, indeed!
Thank you so much for creating such a successful endeavor, D. K. It was an honor to be invited to participate. Congratulations everyone!!!
Ooh, look at that! Thanks for the mention, DK 😊 Fun challenge 🩷
Congratulations everyone!
`What a headache this must have been, and a manifesto to boot. Having a headache at the thought of just reading all the entries here, A win and an Honorable mention to you DK. Congrats all, thanks to all who wished me well congrats to all participants.
Oh wowwww, there's soooo many winners! Congratulations to everyone! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Thank you very kindly for organizing this provocative challenge and generously assessing our offerings, DK! Unexpected recognition is always sweet, and I was honored to be in the estimable company of Rachel Deeming and Gabriel Huizenga, two authors for whom I have enormous respect and admiration.
I'll take my silver! 🥈
Thank you so much for this fun challenge, D.K. <3
Woohoo!! Thank you for hosting DK and congrats to the other winners!! 🎉
Fabulous effort D.K. & everyone. You sure have my sincere sympathy D.K… I don’t envy you your judging experience 😵💫… I loathe choosing ‘Winners’!🙃 Lots of reading to catch up on!💖
Congrats, everyone! Great entries! 💜💜💜
Delightful and thank you for hosting this!
So many great entries here! Congrats to everyone! 🎉 I'm bummed I missed this challenge, but I'm looking forward to the next one, D.K.!