This week I’d like to share another piece that was written by Susan Batten. It’s all about writing competitions. I would love to know your opinions on this in the comments.
Roll up! Roll up!
I realised the other day that not all competition entries are assessed by judges. It is made plain in the rules that this kind of competition is a draw.
But when I came to think about this later, I began to feel offended.
The competitor probably won’t win a prize, or even be short-listed, but he or she has worked very hard, not only to write the piece in the first place, but to edit it carefully, follow the specific conditions for each competition, do the lay-out in the approved manner, pay for each entry – and get up the courage, in many cases, to send their darling out into the world.
To have all this effort reduced to a matter of chance is galling, isn’t it?
It’s hard enough for writers to become authors, without making fun of them. We are not estimating how many cornflakes there are in the box!
So here is the question: is this just a bit of fun, or do “draws” make a mockery of what we take so seriously?
Leave a Reply