#WEP WINNERS - OCTOBER CHALLENGE - THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

 Hi! This is Renee & Denise for the team, to sum up the October Challenge and to announce the winners!

Thanks for joining us this Halloween month of October and for taking on the story of the Phantom. Amazing work all - the information regarding the story by Gordon Leroux, was most enlightening, stories just perfect for a campfire setting, or poetry for lovers of the art. I think one of my favorite aspects of the WEP is the different takes on the prompt! Again, thank you for your participation, it was wonderful seeing new entrants and returning entrants! As always the choice for the top was tough! 

Here is a synopsis of all the entries via the tagline the author provided.

Denise Covey - The Ghost of Opéra Garnier - Love will find a way despite exceptional circumstances

Yolanda Renee - Premonition - Pay attention to your sixth sense

Olga Godim - The Phantom Of The Opera - Music on Mars sounds just as beautiful as it did on Earth

Nilanjana Bose - Chiaroscuro VI - An old radio goes berserk in the middle of the night

Beth Camp - First Time - What do we learn when we close our eyes?

Kalpana M - Undisguised - A self-satisfied man immerses himself in his needs

Shilpa Gupte - Rukhsar Khala and her Kitties -  Love thy neighbour, but from afar

Roland R Clarke - Masked Nemesis - Chaos from the shadows delivers a crippling blow to the night witches

Pat Garcia - Joy Comes In The Morning - The kids fell in love with him, a man whose face they couldn’t see. Fascinated by the white gauze covering his head, ears, face, and neck, each wanted to be like him

Jemi Fraser - Think Of Me - Deep in the tunnels, surprises await

Sonia Dogra - Phantom - Stories that did rounds of villages were, after all, only stories

Jamie - Phantom of the Boarded Up House - Teen initiation includes B&E to Phantom’s ghostly concert

Christopher Scott - Phantoms - Inspired by Lon Chaney’s portrayal of the Phantom

J Lenni Dorner - Phantom Wolves - Phantom wolves battle our heroes

Ornery Owl - The Star Child and the Phantom of the Opera - The Other remains reviled

Hilary Melton-Butcher - Phantom Of The Opera - Who But Me Could Come Up with This Post for the poor Phantom (of the Opera) prompt – I feel for him … I wonder if they had Bile Beans on the Nile 

Damyanti Biswas - Have You Met the Phantom of My Life’s Opera? - Things only begin with mistakes. That’s not where they end

SHORTLIST

As always our talented writers make the task pretty tough for the team. 

For the prompt 'The Phantom of the Opera', here is the not-so-short shortlist (in no particular order)!

Shilpa Gupte 

Hilary-Melton Butcher

Ornery Owl

Beth Camp

Kalpana Misra

Carole Stolz

Pat Garcia

Jamie Dorner

Damyanti Biswas

JUDGE'S CHOICES

Ornery Owl

Shilpa Gupte

Beth Camp

but as Nick says: 

Great stuff all around! Other selections were bubbling under. Well done to all!

 Thank you for the haunting quality of each contribution!

COMMENTING

WEP is a supportive writing environment where you are welcome to try new ideas, take risks, and put forth your latest WIP for feedback. Commenters are asked to be respectful, and sensitive and to keep comments positive. 

The trouble with commenting on blogs continues (we're fortunate that Google hasn't messed up our commenting here) or on our C-Box. And if your blog comments are down and you have a blogger blog, consider changing your comment settings to Pop-ups, not embedded, temporarily, until Google provides a fix.

And if you're using Pop-ups and people still can't comment, we hope would-be commenters will post at WEP or C-Box.

This month's prize is from me, Yolanda Renee, a mini Developmental Edit. 

Please email me at yolandarenee@hotmail express for further details!

AND NOW IT'S TIME TO CONGRATULATE THE WINNERS!

WE HOPE YOU AGREE THE BADGES ARE BEYOND AWESOME!

THANKS, OLGA GODIM!

And, the Oscars go to...

Three winners, three Oscars!

AFTER MUCH DELIBERATION, THE WINNER OF THE OCTOBER 2023 CHALLENGE 

~THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA~

IS

CONGRATULATIONS Ornery Owl!

Please accept our thanks for writing such a great essay. READ IT HERE. Please accept your badge and add it to your blog.

Nick says: 'A really thought-provoking essay that shows how the story is still relevant today. Sadly, like she says, we need to do so much better.'

Remember, if you can't use Yolanda's generous gift, please let us know so we can pass it on. We hate it when a gift remains unopened.

~*~

THE RUNNER-UP OF THE OCTOBER 023 CHALLENGE 

~THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA~

IS

CONGRATULATIONS Shilpa Gupte!

Thanks, Shilpa for an innovative read. READ IT HERE.  Please post the badge to your blog with a link to your story!

As Nick says: 'Fun and playful, but subtly terrifying as well - this is a treat!'

~*~

THE ENCOURAGEMENT AWARD FOR THE OCTOBER 2023 CHALLENGE 

~THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA~

GOES TO

CONGRATULATIONS Beth Camp!

Thank you for a short entry packed with good things. READ IT HERE. Please accept the badge and display it on your blog. 

Nick says: 'Short and sweet, a feel-good dopamine lift, a nice message to take forward.'

~*~

CONGRATULATIONS ALL!

REMEMBER!

THE WEP ANTHOLOGY

A mock-up temporary cover was created on Canva.

WE'D LOVE TO HAVE YOUR ENTRY!

UPDATE: The entries are trickling in. We are concerned we won't receive the numbers to go ahead. If you intend to submit, please let us know.

WEP 2024 FLASH FICTION ANTHOLOGY - to be released approx. May 2024.

All winners are automatically invited to submit.

Anyone involved in WEP in the past is invited to submit.

Nila is in charge of bringing this baby home. For now, any questions, please post in comments so all can see the answers.

TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES WHO LOVE WRITING FLASH FICTION:

 You are personally invited to submit a flash fiction piece of between 500 min - 1,000 words max to our upcoming anthology. This will be a work of prose fiction – no poetry, although a poem may be included within your predominately prose story.

 Many of the finer points of the anthology are still being finalized, but we have a concrete theme -- Gone!  Gone! Gone! All stories submitted will be written to this theme from which the WEP team envisages many possible genres - thriller, romance, fictionalized memoir, horror, crime, women's fiction, paranormal ... and others. By the August post, you will know all there is to know.

 What do we want? We want standalone, complete, previously unpublished stories - no extracts of a WIP or serialized story, photo essay or opinion piece. A solid flash fiction. This will be submitted to technical guidelines to be announced in August. This is when WEP will publish an Anthology Page on the site where you will see various ideas for stories, but none is binding. We stress - this is YOUR story, written YOUR way in your chosen genre.

 We aim to publish a high-quality eBook and print book. If your entry is accepted, you will be asked to perform further self-edits and the editorial team will do any final editing. WEP's raison d'etre is to improve writing, so the writing must be well-edited and excellent overall.

 The Anthology is the culmination of the work and collective wisdom of 13 years of enthusiasm for flash fiction. Most of the current team have been with WEP in one role or another for the duration.

 We envisage submissions closing at the end of December ‘23.

Please join us for the Challenge in December! This is a post where you aren't painted into any corners. Give us your real self!

For the festive season, we're taking the stress out and leaving the fun in. No competition, only creativity. We're inviting you to a Holiday Writing Party and we're saying Over to YOU. 

Remember to post December 1 through the 15 so everyone can get on with the festive season! 

~OVER TO YOU~

Click on our Challenges 2023 page for ideas for December. But we stress, write your entry your way! What movie inspired you?

SHARE THE LOVE IF YOU WISH. IF YOU DON'T DO SOCIAL MEDIA, THAT'S TOTALLY FINE.

We announce our WEP OCTOBER‘23 #THEPHANTOMOFTHEOPERA #winners @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @jemifraser @SoniaDogra16 #amwriting #writingcontest #flashfiction #wepwinners https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2023/10/wep-winners-october-challenge-phantom.html

#WEPFF OCTOBER ’23 #THEPHANTOMOFTHEOPERA #winners announced @DeniseCCovey @SoniaDogra16 @yolandarenee @jemifraser #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners #writingcontest https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2023/10/wep-winners-october-challenge-phantom.html

Come congratulate our OCTOBER’23 #THEPHANTOMOFTHEOPERA #winners! #WEPFF Challenge @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @SoniaDogra16 @jemifraser #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners #writingcontesthttps://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2023/10/wep-winners-october-challenge-phantom.html

Signing off for now

Renee & Denise

for the team

#WEP WINNERS : AUGUST 2023 CHALLENGE - CHOCOLAT

 Hi! This is Sonia and Denise for the team, to sum up the August Challenge and to announce the winners!

To begin with, a big thank you to all participants for joining us in August and for blowing us away with their nuanced, intricate, brilliant responses to the prompt. We had some first timers for 2023 and the overall reading experience with the range of genres and plots was certainly gratifying. Why don't you read them for yourself if  you haven't already to check the incredible range of talent pool. 

Here is a round up of all the entries.

1. Denise Covey -  Food is a memory trigger extraordinaire!

2. Nilanjana Bose - Engraved: a double scoop sundae romance story in a story

3. Yolanda Renée- Solace is found in the simplest gesture

4. J Lenni Dorner- Elves trade with chocolate, but that's poison to wolves

5. Sonia Dogra- The Circuit of Life

6. Jamie Dorner- Chocolate and Death: A tragic, controversial, trigger-heavy, realistic fiction.

7. Bernadette Braganza- The Workshop After Christmas : A behind-the-scenes look at Santa's workshop during the year.

8. Olga Godim- How to grow cocoa trees on Mars. 

9. Pat Garcia- After working throughout the night making her sweet round dark chocolat balls, she had wanted to stay home, but Friday afternoon was the usual time she went to Mass.

10. Carole Stolz- The Sinking and the Sweet: To a young woman depressed and without means after a shipwreck, salvation comes from an unexpected encounter.

11. Hilary Melton-Butcher-  Like water, like chocolate... both lifelong intimate companions...

12. Damyanti Biswas- Stay in your lane.

13. Jemi Fraser-  Brownies: Not quite how mom used to make.

14. Ornery Owl- Fudge: Treat the patient, not the chart!

15. Donna- Guarding the chocolate-finding a way from fascism to hope

16. Shilpa Gupte- A Bittersweet Tale of a Chocolate Pastry : The Hunger Games

17. Beth Camp- Memories: One day we'll return to Paris

18. Roland Clarke- Chocolate Pots: The Night Witches taste from the past and discover new delights.

19. Kalpana Misra- Chocolate Queen writes a letter to the Carrot Queen.

20. Silver Tree- Chocolate in Renaissance Times: A world without chocolate would be a sad world indeed; thank God for the adventurous ones who brought chocolate home from distant lands!

SHORTLIST

This month we had an eclectic mix of genres, ranging from poetry to romance, contemporary to nonfiction. The interesting part is that the shortlist isn't really 'short'! It goes on to show that we have a great bunch of writers who make the task pretty tough for the team. 

With six members in the team, it's not easy to reach a consensus. As they say, readers are a subjective lot. All the WEP members have good reasons to support their choices, before a final list is sent to our judge, Nick Wilford.

For the prompt 'Chocolat', here is the not-so-short shortlist (in no particular order)!

Shilpa Gupte 

Hilary-Melton Butcher

Beth Camp

Kalpana Misra

Carole Stolz

Pat Garcia

Jamie Dorner

Damyanti Biswas

BUT...We love our WEP writers and see you all as winners! Sometimes the attention to craft combined with explicit research delights our writer's heart. Thank you for a feast of Chocolat!

COMMENTING

WEP is a supportive writing environment where you are welcome to try new ideas, take risks, and put forth your latest WIP for feedback. Commenters are asked to be respectful, sensitive and to keep comments positive. 

If you have trouble commenting on blogs, please continue to leave a comment here (we're fortunate that Google hasn't messed up our commenting here) or on our C-Box. And if your blog comments are down and you have a blogger blog, consider changing your comment settings to Pop-ups, not embedded, temporarily, until google provides a fix.

This month's prize is from Christine Rains

LINKS:

Website

Facebook

Twitter - X

Goodreads

AND NOW IT'S TIME TO CONGRATULATE THE WINNERS!

WE HOPE YOU AGREE THE BADGES ARE BEYOND AWESOME!

THANKS, OLGA GODIM!

And, the Oscars go to...

Three winners, three Oscars!

AFTER MUCH DELIBERATION, THE WINNER OF THE JUNE 2023 CHALLENGE 

~CHOCOLAT~

IS

CONGRATULATIONS SHILPA!

Shilpa's short and effective flash, A Bittersweet Tale of a Chocolate Pastry, blew us away!

Nick says, "Succulent and heart-breaking at the same time - showing the societal divides that still exist through a device as simple as a pane of glass."

Shilpa, please post this badge on your blog and link it to your winning entry. Tweet (X) it/Facebook it if you desire to share the love! Use the critique prize from our loyal supporter Christine Rains or pass it on to the next winner if you can't avail yourself of it in the next few months.

~*~

THE RUNNER-UP OF THE JUNE 2023 CHALLENGE 

~CHOCOLAT~

IS

CONGRATULATIONS JAMIE!

Jamie's story Chocolate and Death was achingly beautiful while terrifying.

Nick says, "Hard hitting and hard to read, in a way. But worthwhile for raising such issues that many will be unaware of."

Jamie, please post the badge on your blog and promo any way you wish!

~*~

THE ENCOURAGEMENT AWARD FOR THE JUNE 2023 CHALLENGE 

~CHOCOLAT~

GOES TO

CONGRATULATIONS CAROLE!

Carole's flash, The Sinking and the Sweet, brought a smile and a lovely twist to a beautiful tale.

Nick says,  "Tragedy and delight combined - and a testimony to the power of chocolate for sure!"

Carole, please post the badge on your blog and promo any way you wish!

Be in it!

A mock-up temporary cover created on Canva.

WEP 2024 FLASH FICTION ANTHOLOGY - to be released approx. May 2024.

All winners are automatically invited to submit.

Anyone involved in WEP in the past is invited to submit.

Nila is in charge of bringing this baby home. For now, any questions, please post in comments so all can see the answers.

TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES WHO LOVE WRITING FLASH FICTION:

 You are personally invited to submit a flash fiction piece of between 500 min - 1,000 words max to our upcoming anthology. This will be a work of prose fiction – no poetry, although a poem may be included within your predominately prose story.

 Many of the finer points of the anthology are still being finalized, but we have a concrete theme -- Gone!  Gone! Gone! All stories submitted will be written to this theme from which the WEP team envisage many possible genres - thriller, romance, fictionalized memoir, horror, crime, women's fiction, paranormal ... and others. By the August post, you will know all there is to know.

 What do we want? We want standalone, complete, previously unpublished stories - no extracts of a WIP or serialized story, photo essay or opinion piece. A solid flash fiction. This will be submitted to technical guidelines to be announced in August. This is when WEP will publish an Anthology Page on the site where you will see various ideas for stories, but none is binding. We stress - this is YOUR story, written YOUR way in your chosen genre.

 We aim to publish a high-quality eBook and print book. If your entry is accepted, you will be asked to perform further self-edits and the editorial team will do any final editing. WEP's raison d'etre is to improve writing, so the writing must be well edited and excellent overall.

 The Anthology is the culmination of the work and collective wisdom of 13 years of enthusiasm for flash fiction. Most of the current team have been with WEP in one role or another for the duration.

 We envisage submissions closing at the end of December ‘23.

GUIDELINES FOR NEW RELEASE POST!!

Hey WEP writer friends! 

If you'd like to promote your latest release, we offer a shout out.

email Denise: den.covey@gmail.com and 

CC Sonia -soniawrites2018@gmail.com 

and read more details on this here

Please join us for the Challenge in October! 

The Phantom of the Opera

Your host is Renee and she is excited to host October! She loves the creepy thrills, but all genres are welcome, not just horrot! 

If you're excited too, please invite your writer friends to join us. We'd like to read more awesome stuff. As they say, the more the merrier!

Click on our Challenges 2023 page for ideas for October. But we stress, write you entry your way! As we said in the June 1 post - 

"None of our prompts require any prior awareness or deep knowledge of anything." But most of us have a deep knowledge of chocolate and the way it adds sweetness to our life.

SHARE THE LOVE IF YOU WISH. IF YOU DON'T DO SOCIAL MEDIA, THAT'S TOTALLY FINE.

We announce our WEP AUGUST‘23 #CHOCOLAT #winners @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @jemifraser @SoniaDogra16 #amwriting #writingcontest #flashfiction #wepwinners https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2023/08/wep-winners-august-2023-challenge.html

#WEPFF AUGUST ’23 #CHOCOLAT #winners announced @DeniseCCovey @SoniaDogra16 @yolandarenee @jemifraser #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners #writingcontest https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2023/08/wep-winners-august-2023-challenge.html

Come congratulate our AUGUST ’23 #CHOCOLAT #winners! #WEPFF Challenge @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @SoniaDogra16 @jemifraser #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners #writingcontest https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2023/08/wep-winners-august-2023-challenge.html

Signing off for now

Sonia and Denise

for the team