~winner! no, wait – TWO winners!

Well, my first contest is officially over!

Roh’s Character Contest #1 has not one, but two winners!

The Random Drawing – all this required is that the entrant comment on the Character Contest post. That’s it. Pretty simple. A few of the entrants also participated in the writing contest and received a bonus entry in the random drawing if their writing piece met a special word count criteria (their word count was a multiple of nine). Prize: an e-copy of the Nebula Award-winning novella The Unicorn Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas.

The name of each commenter was dutifully written on a ticket and placed into The Official Random Drawing Contest Bin (aka as the red tupperware bowl).

To the tune of Queen’s We Are the Champions, my Very Patient Husband (VPH) drew the winning name, which I will reveal in a few moments.

The Writing Contest – the requirements were simple. The goal was to write about your favorite character and convince readers to buy the book. Inclusion of the character name, title, and author, along with a limit of 198 words or less, were the only guidelines. Prize: a new softcover copy of Suzy McKee Charnas’ The Vampire Tapestry, along with a $10 gift card to either Borders or Barnes & Noble.

Our official judge was a fellow writer from the Fresno Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers group. Melanie Smith, affectionately known as Mellie, is a free-lance editor and a friend of mine. When I asked for her help in judging the entries, she was thrilled to do so.

The entries were numbered and sent to her, so she had no idea who the various authors were.  I felt this was important to remove any possibility of bias. Submissions were judged on grammar, punctuation, word craft, and strength of argument. (many thanks, Mellie!)

So, without further ado, here are the contest winners:

(drum roll, please!)

Winner of the Random Drawing

Ryan, aka R. Garrett Wilson

Ryan is a member of the Fresno Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers group. His short story, Meeting the Bakrra, will be appearing in our group anthology, I Dreamed a Crooked Dream, to be published this fall. Ryan’s blog is full of introspection and information that pertains to writing (and babies – he’s a new daddy). I’m sure he’d welcome a visit.

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Winner of the Writing Contest

Tessa of Tessa’s Blurb

Tessa recently hosted The Blogfest of Death, in which participants portrayed a death scene from either a WIP or something entirely new. Her blog is fun – and she has cool Haiku riddles, too. Be sure to check it out!

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In addition to the prizes mentioned, I’ve created a nifty little award to add to the winners’ blogs.

Of course, it’s obvious by this that I should confine my creative interests to writing and leave artwork to those who can actually do it…

Anyhow, congratulations to our winners!

Character Contest #2 will be taking place this fall – stay tuned to this blog.

I leave you with a final note…today is a nine-day! (7/26/2010: 7+2+6+2+0+1+0=18; 1+8=9)