Welcome to #WEP - Write...Edit...Publish AUGUST Challenge -- CHANGE OF HEART

Hello there beloved writers!

It's time for our AUGUST challenge, CHANGE OF HEART.

This month, we welcome writers from the IWSG (Insecure Writers Support Group) who are joining the challenge. Some are already regulars and I'm hoping many more will become part of the WEP team as well.

The WEP team have a GUEST POST on the IWSG website on August 6. Here is the link which won't go live until August 6:  
http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/2018/08/writing-together-with-wep-and-iswg.html

Here are some suggestions for this challenge:

• a commitment made when a prospect looked attractive, 
• a decision on a course of action, and then regrets and reluctance to follow through,  
• an engagement, a date, a diet plan, a chore someone said they’d do and didn’t follow through,  
• a strip poker-game. Or maybe a gamble with super-high, panic inducing stakes, 
• a break for independence that once made, gives pause for second thoughts,
• a bolt for the grass-always-greener pasture and then wanting to vault-n-turn right back,
• a broken relationship where one/both parties regret the loss
• something offered, then withdrawn.  

Myriad ways to go.  

Over to you. Sign up now. Please remember to add WEP to your post title so it's easily spotted. We like to have all participants on the blogroll, please have a quick scan and tell us if your blog is missing and email Denise if it's not there!
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We'd love it if you'd tweet one of these:

The WEP/IWSG August Challenge CHANGE OF HEART - @YolandaRenee @DeniseCCovey @TheIWSG https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/08/welcome-to-wep-writeeditpublish-august.html #amwriting #ff #WEPFF  

The WEP 2018 August Challenge Change of Heart - @YolandaRenee @DeniseCCovey @TheIWSG https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/08/welcome-to-wep-writeeditpublish-august.html #amwriting #flashfiction #WEPFF 

A Change of Heart? August’s Challenge @YolandaRenee & @DeniseCCovey @TheIWSG https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/08/welcome-to-wep-writeeditpublish-august.html #WEPFF #amwriting #flashfiction

Join @YolandaRenee @DeniseCCovey @TheIWSG for the Latest FF Challenge Change of Heart https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/08/welcome-to-wep-writeeditpublish-august.html #WEPFF #amwriting #flashfiction

What does a Change of Heart mean to you? Tell @YolandaRenee @DeniseCCovey @TheIWSG in this month’s challenge and you may be our next winner! https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/08/welcome-to-wep-writeeditpublish-august.html #WEPFF #amwriting #flashfiction

There will be no Change of Heart when you join and take part! @YolandaRenee @DeniseCCovey @TheIWSG https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/08/welcome-to-wep-writeeditpublish-august.html #WEPFF #amwriting #flashfiction

**IF YOU WANT TO SHARE THE CHALLENGE ON YOUR BLOG, COPY THIS SCRIPT:

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#Winners #GuestPost for #WEP June challenge - UNRAVELED YARN - Elephant's Child on a PARADOX. Plus - An exciting partnership for WEP!

Hi! Denise here!

A huge congratulations to Elephant's Child who won the WEP June challenge, UNRAVELED YARN with her non-fiction story described as 'Very powerful stuff and causes one to think about how things could have been different.' If you haven't read it yet, go to this link!

Elephant's Child sent through this text which encapsulates what she has to share today...

Over to Elephant's Child...

Paradox.

Was the internet (and specifically blogs) designed with selfish introverts like me in mind?

Curiosity is one of my defining characteristics.

I am also an introvert.  It isn't that I don't like people, or am not interested in them, or even that I am particularly shy which are all common introvert myths.  I am interested in people, immensely so, but I find them exhausting.  Exhausting to the point of nausea and collapse.  

I need quiet time (preferably alone) to recover. 

Discovering the internet certainly scratched my curiosity itch (although it createed new ones).  Discovering the blogosphere was like coming home.

I learn from other bloggers, on so many levels and about so many subjects.  I marvel at their creations across a whole range of genres.  

I laugh with them.  

I weep with and for them.  

And, if I am tired or overwhelmed, I can shut down the screen and take time out without offending anyone.  Bliss.

Thanks to the internet, my horizons have been expanded immeasurably, and access to that much wider world has been reduced to a finger click.  

A paradox for which I am immensely grateful.

Those of you who follow ninja Alex J Cavanaugh's blog will already know that there's something happening with WEP and the IWSG. He's been dropping hints. 

Great news! 

The IWSG approached us in late May regarding a partnership. After some thought, we saw the benefit of growing our group by joining together. A couple of the IWSG admin already join us for challenges on a regular basis and others have popped in from time to time, so they know us well. 

By forming a partnership, we can call on the superior marketing skills of the IWSG as none of the WEP team is into marketing/promotion. With so much competition in the bloghop arena, getting our name out there and giving more writers the chance to showcase their work (from beginner to professional) is awesome.

Along with marketing, we welcome our new judge from the IWSG, Nick Wilford. 

Nick is a speculative author and editor. He had a trial run in June and did an awesome job in putting our shortlisters into winning order. The bonus is he's easy to work with. We'll continue to send Nick our shortlist and he and another judge (new each challenge - yet to be chosen) will decide the winners. 

Good news for long-time WEPpers! Nothing will change for you! Except there'll be more competition for those prizes. At this stage we are keeping the challenges every second month and will be working through our 2018 challenges as on our Pages and badge in the sidebar - so August/October/December to go. The IWSG is going to run a competition for the best challenge to begin 2019, so be aware that's happening soon!

More news! A mixture of good and bad. 

Our very own horror queen, Yolanda Renee, will be running the October Deju Vu/Halloween/Horror challenge as her last hurrah before leaving the team due to health challenges. I hope you'll all rock up and rock Yolanda's world as she goes out with a bang or a shriek or a scream!

Those of you who receive the IWSG newsletter (SIGN UP HERE) will see they're making the announcement in late July and I'll be guest posting early August, explaining some of WEP's history (did you know we've been around - transforming - since 2010?)

So, lovely WEP people, please continue with us! I look forward to the August CHANGE OF HEART challenge where hopefully we'll welcome many new writers! Please show your WEP friendly spirit and welcome them! And don't worry. We'll still be the warm, supportive online writing group you've come to love!

JOIN US IN AUGUST!

And here is the joint badge. We'd love it if you post it on your site! If you prefer the one with rays in the sidebar, you're welcome to show that one!

And please, if the pop up pops up, asking you to SUBSCRIBE, please leave your email address for us to add to the list!

So, congratulations again to Elephant's Child.

Any questions re the partnership, email Denise.

We'd love if you'd Tweet one of these:

#WEPFF Unraveled Yarn Winners announced. @DeniseCCovey &@YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/07/winners-guestpost-for-wep-june.html #amwriting #flashfiction

Come congratulate Elephant's Child, first place winner #WEPFF Unraveled Yarn Challenge @DeniseCCovey @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/07/winners-guestpost-for-wep-june.html #amwriting #flashfiction

The #WEPFF writers are all winners! @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/07/winners-guestpost-for-wep-june.html #amwriting #flashfiction

#WEPff UNRAVELED YARN - Winners!

When we set the prompt, UNRAVELED YARN, the team wondered how it would be received. We needn't have worried. Your posts explored 'yarn' from many and varied POVs, some literal, some metaphoric, some fictional, some raw non-fiction, some poetic. The variety showed the creativity of the writer's mind.

The reading part of a WEP challenge is easy for the team, even though we often go back several times for a re-read. Then another read if there are similar stories. Then comes the hard part. Choosing three outstanding entries. Often the writers who make the final cut tugged at our heartstrings and stood out above the rest or simply entertained us. Whatever the process, coming to a final decision should be easier, but how we respond to writing is SO subjective. What floats one's boat, sinks another's.

UNRAVELED YARN resulted in some deep responses. Isn't that really the point of writing? To garner an emotional response in our readers? That's the sort of thing editors crave from submissions that cross their desks. Here at WEP, we like being emotionally involved in your stories and poetry. 

Here is a quick run through of the entries, excepting your hosts':

Pat Garcia – Engaging, emotional as always. Pat's heroine was someone with insecurities we could sympathise with. 

Carrie Golden – charmed us with her micropoetry on the unravelling that happens during a heat wave.

Christopher Scott - combined punk fiction with classical mythology to weave a thought provoking tale. Fixing fate is a tricky job!

L G Keltner – riveted us with her chilling, powerful flash on abuse, murder and thwarted revenge in the afterlife.

Pat Hatt – delivered with great panache another of his dark, nasty and extremely clever tales.

Kalpanaa – came in with a poetry entry that beautifully combined unravelling and yarn with gender stereotypes, expectations and freedom.

DG Hudson– gave us another snippet of her stellar sci-fi story set on an abandoned space station where some mysterious intruders are up to something disconcerting.

Jo-ke Ojo–  was amazing as always. Her brilliant poem explored the trappings and unravelling of gender identities.

Desk 49 – spun a fun, light hearted flash in prose this time, a change from his usual poetry posts.

Elephant's Child - posted a stunning, courageous and poignant memoir of a life unravelled by grief and alcoholism and its far reaching ramifications.
C. Lee McKenzie - delivered a poetry entry with splendidly evocative imagery and metaphors. Generations of women and the knowledge, or ignorance, of handling yarns.

Deborah Drucker – showed us that loneliness can take us down a dark path.

Orlin - a cute, playful take on the prompt with kittens literally unravelling the yarn, told from a cat POV done to a turn.

Jaya - posted a well-crafted and sorrowful tale of the unravelling of a suburban neighbourhood to creeping urbanisation. A dream home turned into a nightmare under the boots of progress.

Hilary Melton-Butcher -  wove a cool, colourful flash with children and wool and a napping grandpa which felt almost like a fairy tale, interspersed with amazing images, as is her forte.

Crystal Jepsen -  a first timer at WEP, Crystal gave us a disturbing and powerful flash on child abuse. Looking out for her future entries!

Dolarah - wrote an exquisitely atmospheric tale of an everyday hero set in small town USA. Is this navy Seal-turned-small-town-good Samaritan as whole and as wholesome as he appears?

Randomzb - Another first timer. Randomzb gave us a flash which kept the reader guessing whether grandfather was reminiscing or telling a tall tale. A Turkish delight!

Elephant's Child - non-fiction

Pat Hatt - flash fiction

L.G. Keltner - flash fiction

C. Lee McKenzie - poetry

Pat Garcia - flash fiction

Dolorah - flash fiction

As we couldn't get a consensus amongst ourselves, I outsourced the shortlist to writer and editor, Nick Wilford, who is also associated with the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG). (More on that in a later post.) Nick kindly read each entry on the shortlist, giving the following feedback:

Elephant's Child - non-fiction - 'Very powerful stuff and causes one to think about how things could have been different. Excellent interpretation of the theme.'

Pat Hatt - flash fiction -  'Packs quite a punch and took me by surprise! I know this one wasn't a poem, but it had a lot of haunting and poetic images and something of a flow to it. Dark and mysterious.'

L.G. Keltner - flash fiction - 'Powerful and moving. A great take on the theme.'

C. Lee McKenzie - poetry - 'Great structure, stream of consciousness feel. Manages to convey regret, nostalgia and hope in only a few words. Nice job.'

Pat Garcia - flash fiction - 'Very vivid and intrigued me to know more.'

Dolorah - flash fiction - 'Nice and understated, but hints at something deeper going on. Leaves it to the reader to fill in the blanks. Great folksy feel to it.'


So finally, we came up with three winners.

THE WINNER OF THE

2018 WEP JUNE CHALLENGE UNRAVELED YARN

is ELEPHANT'S CHILD 

Congratulations Elephant's Child!
Please link the badge to your story and post it on your blog!

An Amazon Gift Card of $10 will be winging your way shortly.

***

THE RUNNER UP OF THE

2018 WEP JUNE CHALLENGE UNRAVELED YARN 

is C. LEE McKENZIE

Congratulations Lee!

Please link the badge to your story and post it on your blog!

***

THE ENCOURAGEMENT AWARD FOR THE

2018 WEP JUNE CHALLENGE UNRAVELED YARN 

is L. G. Keltner

Congratulations L. G.!
Please link the badge to your story and post it on your blog!

***

All prospective winners are vetted for their comments before they are awarded a prize. 

Why? Because WEP is a supportive writing community where each person is valued. Wouldn't we all be sad if no one took the time to read/comment on our posts?

For the very strong commenters, we made a special award. 

For the inaugural Commenting Champion Award, issued in April for the Road Less Traveled prompt, we acknowledged Desk49. 

For June, we pass the Commenter Award to Elephant's Child, who, even when she cannot take part in the writing challenge, often reads all our entries and comments. That's true dedication!

Thank you Elephant's Child!. Please accept the badge and display on your blog!

We thank our team member, Olga, for the creative winners' badges. And kudos to team member Nila who re-read all the entries whilst in India to produce those alluring blurbs on each! 

THANK YOU TO ALL PARTICIPANTS!

THE NEW TIMEZONE:  In June, WEP began posting to EST (East Coast USA) time which is shown on the clock on the site. Still, we sent out 5 reminders to late posters. In the future, we will no longer send reminders. Late posters often lack readers, so remember to post your entry on or before the challenge date according to the clock on the website. The linky will tell you how many hours to closing time. Thanks for making our lives easier!

Relative to comments: try to set up your comment system so it's easy to comment! No Google+ please. Leave a message on our CBox or in comments if you cannot post comments on someone's site.

NEW ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING AUGUST WEP COMING SOON! WATCH THIS SPACE AND YOUR EMAIL!

Thanks, everyone, for joining us in JUNE. We appreciate each and every one of you. 

Our next Challenge will be in AUGUST -- CHANGE OF HEART! 

So what's your CHANGE OF HEART going to be about? And I think this is the most gorgeous of Olga's badges yet. How about you?

On the Challenges Page you’ll find the prompt schedule for the year and further inspiration for the next prompt.

Be sure to return to read the winner’s guest post in a couple of weeks!

We'd love if you'd Tweet this post or share to Facebook or your favorite social media site.

Your Hosts…

Denise – Renée – Nilanjana – Olga

Welcome to #WEP - Write...Edit...Publish JUNE Challenge -- UNRAVELED YARN

Hello Writers,

Unraveled Yarn! We’re not necessarily talking knitting and crochet.  Although, knitting/crochet/embroidery could easily be woven into a backdrop, even take centre-stage, in the interpretation of this prompt. A yarn is a long and rambling, often improbable, story. But we’re not talking long and improbable, a crisp and convincing flash in whatever genre you choose is what we’re after. We are open to everything, except erotica.

Serenity, meet Disaster. A lie found out, the unpicking of a tall tale. A crime taking an unexpected turn. A bad-hair day. An ordinary walk spiraling into a crisis. A romantic encounter ending in chaos.   Take your pick with the unpicking. And have fun! 

Remember to add WEP to your post title so it's easily spotted. We like to have all participants on the blogroll, please have a quick scan and tell us if your blog is missing and email one of us if it's not there!

ANNOUNCEMENT!
We're sorry to say that our team member, Yolanda Renee, is withdrawing from WEP at least until the end of the year due to health problems. Please join with us in thanking Yolanda for her seriously excellent input into WEP, and praying her health will improve. We all want to see Yolanda join us again in 2019, don't we? 

If you'd like to post the list on your blog here's the code:

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Don't forget to share the Challenge on your favorite social media! Press our buttons and publicize our yarns!

See you soon!

#WEPff #Guest Post, by Michael Di Gesu, Winner of the April Challenge - Road Less Traveled. - MOMMY KAY.

Welcome to a WEP tradition - the winner's guest post.

Michael di Gesu won the April Challenge -

Road Less Traveled, with his memoir extract from MOMMY KAY.

Today Michael discusses how a good story inspired him to dive back into writing.

Greetings all at the WEP!

  

Thank you so much for featuring me at WEP today, ladies. I am honored to be here.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Winning first place in the ROAD LESS TRAVELED challenge was certainly unexpected.

As many of you know, I have had been less than inspired for the past few years, not writing much and barely keeping up with blogging. It has been a very stressful time, emotionally and physically.

But I have never given up.

I knew it would pass.

It finally has.

Inspiration can come in many forms. It could be our friends, family, our surroundings, a wonderful vacation, or just a walk around town. Spending the winter at my condo in Orlando, Florida was going to be my escape. Instead, the community here has been mismanaged, and basically the complex has taken a nose dive. After much stress, screaming, letter writing, and determination, I had the pleasure of getting to know one of my neighbors, who just happened to be on the board for our condo complex. One day she mentioned her OUTRAGEOUS mother, Kay, who had also lived in this complex. She had died a few years prior and sadly they were estranged during her passing.

Kim informed me about how her siblings had laid Kay to rest, mere hours after her death, with basically no funeral, buried in a pine box, with neither Kim nor any of Kay's friends in attendance. Sadly, Kay had made her son executor of his will. Needless to say, he absconded with everything and Kim never had closure.

As a few months passed, I met Kim on several more occasions walking our dogs. I listened to countless stories about her mother's antics with fronting and selling stolen merchandise in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, her acquaintances and friendships with many well known people of the day, and about her four husbands, ranging from the first, Kim's father, an Italian Catholic, to a Jewish diamond merchant, a Puerto Rican lifeguard, then finally a Muslim Egyptian man eight years her junior. During most of her marriages and between the wheelings and dealings, she owned a beauty shop in Middle Village Queens NY, where she was born and raised.

Kay also had a love affair with the arts and frequented Harlem to hear Count Basie, the Village Gate to hear blues singer, Carmen Mcrae, who eventually became a close friend, several off-Broadway gay oriented plays, and so much more.

But what clinched it for me was Kay’s INCREDIBLY liberal attitude in her life. Many of her clients were African American. Raised in the 30s and 40s as a white Anglo Protestant in QUEENS, NY...this was unheard of. Most people then had very similar views to the famed Archie Bunker of All in the Family fame. Kay's grandfather actually thought All in the Family was a documentary! I gasped when I heard this. My father was also raised in Queens and was an Italian Archie Bunker, so I know first hand how people thought at that time.

I then approached Kim. “This story needs to be told. Have you ever thought of writing a memoir?”

She burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me,” she exclaimed in her thick Queens NY accent. “I can’t write a memoir.”

“But I can,” I said.

Kim and I signed a contract. I am thrilled to be writing Kay's memoir. Kim told me Kay had always wanted to write about her incredible life, and now her story will be told!

I have already written the first seven chapters and I am so excited to continue.... Kay will become as famous as our beloved Auntie Mame, who happened to be fictitious. Kay is the real deal! I cannot begin to tell you how honored and happy I am to write her story. She was an AMAZING woman for her time, and to have roots from the Mayflower, Kay was definitely not anything like the typical 1950's woman.

When I read about April’s prompt at the WEP, I knew I needed to post a snippet from Kay’s story. This piece features Kay’s transformation and the new journey she began on THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED.

Kim is thrilled that Kay’s story was acknowledged. I am EQUALLY as thrilled, knowing that even though we take a hiatus from our writing, no matter how long, we can always come back and produce a winner.

I would also like to congratulate, Carrie Ann Golden, for her incredible insight into forgiving one’s self, and Elephant’s Child, for her amazing life-changing adventure to Antarctica. Writers who submit to the WEP are so talented, I don’t envy the WEP in choosing their winners.

Thank you again, ladies of the WEP, for choosing MOMMY KAY as the first place winner.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

  

 A creative soul, Michael Di Gesu has been in the arts since a child. Trained as an illustrator and interior designer with a BFA from School of Visual Arts in NYC, he took his earlier career in a different direction after he was discovered by a photographer from the fashion industry. He modeled in NYC and abroad until 1991, then left NYC and moved to South Florida to begin a new artistic journey.

He began his career in interior design after remodeling his home in Fort Lauderdale. He freelanced for several years until he moved to Las Vegas in the Mid 90s. There he returned to the fashion industry and worked as a hair stylist and makeup artist for major fashion adds through R&R advertising Agency.

After five years he returned to South Florida to resume interior design.

In the mid 2000’s he moved to Chicago to increase exposure in the interior design world. After five successful years, the real estate market crashed. Freelance interior design work dried up. With no real prospects, he decided to enter the literary world and write and illustrate his first middle grade fantasy novel. With a whole new world opening up to him through blogging, Michael found his new niche. The writing community was a breath of fresh air for him and he met many amazing writers who helped mentor him.

In 2013, he started his freelance book design, illustration, and creative editing business, specializing in unique and original works of art. His talent for introductions of books, lead to blurb writing.

Today he is still a freelance interior designer, and continues to assist his writer clients with blurbs, creative editing, illustration, and book design.

You can find him at his blog, IN TIME: http://writing-art-and-design.blogspot.com

You can find his creative services @ http://writing-art-and-design.blogspot.com/p/m.html

Creative works/portfolio @ http://writing-art-and-design.blogspot.com/p/my-book-cover-designs-and-blurbs.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DAK86

Are you going to win the next WEP Challenge?

June 1st is the day to sign up for UNRAVELED YARN

Please hit the social media buttons to SHARE this post!

SHARING IS CARING!

#WEPFF - The Road Less Traveled challenge winners! And we've added a new category!

Hi all ye who pass by...

Despite it being the A-Z Challenge , 20 hardy souls took up the Road Less Traveled Challenge and entertained, inspired and made us cry. Thank you all!

Before I get to the fun part, did you catch the WEP team's collaborative post for the A-Z challenge? It was so fun, bouncing off each other's stories to create an on-going story with a road sign as our prompt. If you haven't read it, go HERE. We'd love to hear what you think!

The reading part of a WEP challenge is easy for the team, even if we have to go back several times for a re-read. Then comes the hard part. Choosing 3 outstanding entries. Often the writers who make the final cut tugged at us and stood out above the rest. Now that there's 4 of us on the team to have this discussion, coming to a final decision should be easier, but how we respond to writing is SO subjective. What floats one's boat, sinks another's.

So after much to-ing and fro-ing, we came up with a shortlist. On this list we had in no particular order:

L.G. Keltner with her inspiring SPEECH.

Desk49 with his personal POETRY.

Carrie Golden with her heart-rending MEMOIR.

Michael di Gesu with his super-fun MEMOIR.

Elephant's Child with her awe-inspiring TRAVEL post.

Kalpanaa with her tribute to Indira Ghandi.

Right from the start, when the team came up with the idea of a Road Less Traveled, I LOVED it. This idea could take you anywhere. It resulted in some deep responses. Isn't that really the point of writing? To garner an emotional response in our readers. Here at WEP, we like being emotionally involved and that is what we were. 

Here is a quick run through of the entries, excepting your hosts':

Pat Garcia – Engaging, emotional as always. Pat's heroine was someone with insecurities most of us could sympathise with. 

Carrie Golden – reminded us that forgiving yourself is often the hardest thing to do in life.

Christopher Scott introduced us to his speculative fiction, 'Raypunk' and told a gripping tale where readers asked for more. 

L G Keltner – a new genre, L.G. wrote an inspirational speech aimed at graduating students

Pat Hatt – delivered with great panache another of his dark, nasty and extremely clever tales. 

Kalpanaa – through beautiful images, Kalpanaa reminded us of that inspirational lady, Indira Ghandi. 

DG Hudson– took us to Outpost Station #6, The Far Reaches, a riveting episode of sci-fi.  

Jo-ke Ojo– wrote a short, sharp poem that showed a woman fed up with waiting around...who could forget? - '...he came, she left, dinner was over.'   

Desk 49 – wrote poetically of fragments of his life…nostalgia, pathos, hope...

Elephant's Child - Whoa, a  trip to Antarctica, made more personal by her family's negative response to her once-in-a-lifetime-trip.

J Lenni Dorner – the plot thickened in an on-going flash for the A - Z which fitted with the April WEP prompt. 

Tyrean A Martinson - Literally had us clinging to the edge, as she explored flight...

Donna McNichol - showed us what it can be like - this coming home.

Roland Yeomans – through the Ghost of Carl Sagan, Roland bathed us in mystery. 

Michael di Gesu - introduced us to the memoir of Kay Hickman, written in such a way, the words bounced off the page.

Deborah Drucker – showed us that loneliness can take us down a dark path. 

And now to the announcements:

THE WINNER OF THE

2018 WEP APRIL CHALLENGE

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

is

Michael di Gesu

Congratulations Michael!

With its peek into a chapter from his coming memoir on the life of Kay Hickman, Michael dazzled us. Please accept the winner's badge, Michael, and show it in your sidebar with a link to your story. 

An Amazon Gift Card of $10 will be winging your way shortly.

***

THE RUNNER UP OF THE

2018 WEP APRIL CHALLENGE

IS

Carrie Ann Golden

Carrie's memoir on forgiveness was an inspiration to us all. Thank you for sharing with us, Carrie. Please display the badge on your blog with a link to your post.

Congratulations Carrie!

***

THE ENCOURAGEMENT AWARD FOR THE

2018 WEP APRIL CHALLENGE GOES TO

Elephant's Child

Elephant's Child, we loved your free verse with the title, Antarctica, and the beautiful original photographs which accompanied your entry. Please accept the badge and display it on your blog with a link to your entry.

Congratulations Elephant's Child!

***

BREAKING NEWS! This month we have a new category which will be awarded at the team's discretion. 

All prospective winners are vetted for their comments before they are awarded a prize. 

Why? Because we need your comments. This is a supportive writing community where each person is valued.

There are a handful of very strong commenters, on the other hand, so this award is created especially for them. 

For the inaugural Commenting Champion Award, issued in April for the Road Less Traveled prompt, we acknowledge Desk49. He not only visits everyone, he comments in poetic form which takes real talent. 

Thank you, Ellis, Desk49. Please accept the badge and display on your blog to inspire all who come by!

And as always, we thank our team member, Olga Godim, for the time and creativity she puts into our winners' badges. 

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WINNERS!

A NEW TIMEZONE: In future challenges, WEP will post to EST (East Coast USA) time. Check the clock at the top. Please post your entry on or before the challenge date according to the clock. The linky will close at midnight at EST on the given date. This will enable the team to read, discuss and decide on winners within a shorter timeframe. Thanks!

Please comment on as many posts as you can, as stated in our submission form - - READ other entries, giving feedback as requested
And if you find you can't comment on a post, due to blogspot or WP difficulties, advise one of the team or leave a comment on the WEP current post. Try to set up your comment system so it's easy to comment!

Thanks, everyone, for joining us in APRIL. We appreciate each and every one of you. 

Our next Challenge will be in JUNE – UNRAVELED YARN! 

So what's it going to be? A tall story? An evil knitting lady/man plotting someone's demise (okay, Yolanda, this is for you!) Whatever pops into your mind, go with it!

On the Challenges Page you’ll find the prompt schedule for the year and further inspiration for the next prompt.

Be sure to return to read the winner’s guest post in a couple of weeks!

We'd love if you'd Tweet one of these:

#WEPFF The Road Less Traveled Winners announced. @DeniseCCovey &@YolandaRenee https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/05/wepff-road-less-traveled-challenge.html #amwriting #flashfiction

Celebrate with Michael di Gesu  first place winner #WEPFF The Road Less Traveled Challenge @DeniseCCovey  @YolandaRenee https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/05/wepff-road-less-traveled-challenge.html #amwriting #flashfiction

The #WEPFF writers are all winners! @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/05/wepff-road-less-traveled-challenge.html #amwriting #flashfiction

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Your Hosts…

Denise – Renée – Nilanjana – Olga