Unveiling the Winners of the 2023 Vocal Writing Awards 🥁
A round of applause for the winners and a huge thank you to all who participated in our first ever community judging round
We've judged, you've judged, and we've all waited... It's finally time to announce the winners of the 2023 Vocal Writing Awards! This year's winners, comprised of the highest caliber works across 8 categories — haiku poetry, free verse poetry, romance fiction, young adult fiction, horror fiction, fantasy fiction, science fiction, and flash fiction — are so worth the read.
Each entry surprised and delighted us, and we seriously enjoyed watching the community judging round results trickle in. Lead Editorial Innovator, Erica Wagner, shared her reflection on the Awards:
"Flash fiction, free verse, horror, romance… it was a truly epic experience to judge the Vocal Writing Awards, a challenge that showcased the rich variety of our Creators’ talents. I loved jumping from category to category and seeing such energy and invention in the entries — and seeing that energy expressed in the community judging process was really special. We’ve always known our creators supported and valued each others’ work: these results were even more proof of that."
Without further ado...
⭐ The Winners ⭐
🥇 First Place: Nature's Morse Code by Jessica Dowding
🥈 Second Place: Heaven's Curtain by Cathy holmes
🥉 Third Place: Rock Bottom Mantra by Alexis Wellmaker
🥇 First Place: Nôhkom by Jen Gossoo
🥈 Second Place: Loss and Gain by F Cade Swanson
🥉 Third Place: Reasons for waking up by Mesh Toraskar
🥇 First Place: The Pavement Kids by Kelsey Syble
🥈 Second Place: Sideswiped by david love
🥉 Third Place: What Shall I Take With Me by Stephanie Ginger
🥇 First Place: The View from the Sails by Lena Folkert
🥈 Second Place: Forecast by Erin Shea
🥉 Third Place: Waiting to go to School by R. J. Rani
🥇 First Place: The Lion and the Pilot by Zack Graham
🥈 Second Place: Deepest, Darkest by Randy Wayne Jellison-Knock
🥉 Third Place: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Caroline Jane
🥇 First Place: Meat, Walking by L.C. Schäfer
🥈 Second Place: The Siren's Purse by EJ Ferguson
🥉 Third Place: Red by Lauren Everdell
🥇 First Place: The Little Coffee Shoppe at the End of the World by Suze Kay
🥈 Second Place: Holy Terra by Alexander McEvoy
🥉 Third Place: Rise High by SC Wells
🥇 First Place: French Onion Soup by Matty Long
🥈 Second Place: I Fall to Pieces by Catsidhe
🥉 Third Place: Always on my Mind by Megan Anderson
As we celebrate the conclusion of the 2023 Vocal Writing Awards, we extend our sincerest congratulations to each winner. Your stories did not only earn recognition from the Vocal judges, but captured the hearts and minds of the Vocal community.
Until our paths cross in the next chapter, keep writing, keep sharing, and keep bringing your unique voices to Vocal. To the winners and to all who participated – thank you again, and here's to the next year of absolutely brilliant written word! 🥂
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Vocal Curation Team
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Comments (72)
Congrats for all the winners.
Congratulation to Everyone, Great Job
Congratulation to all..
A big congratulations to all the Winners.
Congrats to everyone last one who participated. Including the voters. This felt like a night at the Oscar’s.
Have a huge problem with the Haiku category. People are writing 5-5-7 and just sticking them in a 5-7-5 format. The first two places need to be automatically disqualified. Haiku MUST be 5-7-5. What's the point of writing 6-4-7 and just sticking them into 5-7-5 format. Poetry is not an arithmetic game for rule bending. If you want to bend the rules, then do it in freeverse.
💖 Thank you. It is so uplifting and humbling to belong to this community of such talented writers. Thank you for keeping me inspired. I hope to do the same for you!😊
Congratulations!
Being a member of this platform, Proud of you all ,congratulations.
Congratulations
Congratulations to all
Congrats to everyone!! This was an incredible experience. SO happy to see names I recognize and don't recognize. <3
congratulations to all
Congratulations to all the winners! I'm happy to see some names I recognize!
Quite stunned 😱 Thank you!!!! Well done to all those who placed. I read as many as I could and the quality was top tier. If you shortlisted, please feel very proud of yourself 🏆
Congrats to you all :-)
Well done all. Congrats.
Congratulations to all the winners. This was a great opportunity for everyone to enter. Now the competition is over, I'm wondering about all the entries which didn't win or place. I didn't participate in the judging myself, but as this was a blind competition, I assume readers would not know who wrote stories they liked or loved that didn't come first, second or third. It may be hard to find a story they liked again. And there could be many deserving stories, written by many writers, that sort of got discovered for a while, but slip back into obscurity again. Is there some plan to counter this? Perhaps a list of all the entries in all the categories, with their authors credited?
Congrats to you all!
Congratulations all winners 🤦♂️👌👍❤
Congratulations all winners 🏆. Keep writing up.
Massive congratulations to all who placed, as well as those who made the shortlists! 🥳. Xx
Congratulations to the winners! Well done!
Well done everyone!!
Congratulations to all Winner!!