December 2017 Christmas Dreams Story Contest Results (updated)

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     Okay. Here we finally are. At the winner's announcements. First of all, I would like to thank all of our authors whom took the time to actually enter this: that was an act of courage. Secondly, I have had a very hard time judging the entries. I could not use my original setup to grade the entries with and I actually had to enlist help from two friends, one of whom kept laughing at me as I was squirming to decide. It was all in good fun. In truth, she kept me on an even keel as she read along with me the entries and had me question each one the same and analyze different aspects of it.
     Another note, I did not receive any offers for upping the prize amounts, but, I felt every author deserved something for entering. I added an extra $550 as prizes to ensure coverage for all the entrants. So a grand total of $1,585 was awarded.
     Now the reason it took so long for me to finish grading these was because of on top of being sick, my spine was acting up really bad and kept me under the weather in pain. To her credit, I would like to personally thank Leila, author of The Squad, for making me fight the pain and grading when I was hurting so much.
 
     Here is the full list of entries that were submitted:

crazypagangurl - Charlie's Wish: A Fair At Christmas Time
Karen Lockhart - Bobby's Christmas Wish
Savannah Maun - For the Love of my Sister
LadyDragon623 - The Christmas Angel
StacyInLove - It's Love (11/19 only inclusive one)
SamanthaMD - The Twelve Dreams of Christmas
SamanthaMD - Dreams are what you make of them
jessicac119 - Must Be Dreaming - (2 of 2)
Shauna - Day's Christmas ~ (Parts 1 - 4)
Melanie Brown - A Girl Park Christmas
Casey Brooke - S.L.E.P. - Sacrificial Life Extension Project / S.L.E.P.- Homecoming
Andrea Lena - Theresa's Dream - 2 of 2
Andrea Lena - The Arrangement
Andrea Lena - Rey of Hope
Leslie Moore - Christmas Suite
Susanj - Love's Gift
Nuuan - The story of Meri Kris Maas
A Zesty Lemon - Christmas to Christmas
Jennifer Sue - A Punsylvania Christmas Gift
Shadowsblade - Shadowsblade: A Christmas Tale
Nagrij - ....Is you
AuPreviner - Cat Six
Polly Adler - The Answer To A Maiden's (?) Prayer Chapter (2 of 2).
Polly Adler - Christmas Presents
tigger - Change of Seasons
Nessa M - This year, for sure!.
Nessa M - Sister of my Heart
Ricky - An Accidental Meeting
SamanthaAnn - Christmas Dreams.
Jengrl - The Belles of Christmas
shiinaai - The Shut-in Santa Doesn't Want To Work.
Maeryn Lamonte - A Dream of Elegance
Ray Drouillard - Christmas Wishes Granted
 
     The authors were allowed multiple entries noting that only one of their entries would count, that being the strongest one. So, in the following categories some of the entries may not appear, and that would be because they were one of the multiples. There were fantastic ideas and it was a joy reading these. However, in grading, and making sure each entry qualified with my beginning premise: "...the enactment of making or trying to make someone else's dream come true for the Holidays. It can be done from the viewpoint of the main character or a secondary character in the author's story. Either the main character or a secondary character needs to be trans, gay, lesbian, bi, or intersexed," I had to also compare all of the stories against one another. I had to separate strong stories from the weak, Ones that clearly performed the stated premise against those that left the premise off, awaiting the proper ending to ensure it fit and whatnot. There were many questions I ran the stories by to arrive at the ranking I placed them in. I would also like to answer any questions an author has about how their particular stor(y/ies) were graded and why. Just pm me and I will discuss the issues with you at length as I did take notes on each one.
 
     Without further ado, these are the honorable mentions of the contest:
 
(12 x $25 awards)
 
Karen Lockhart - Bobby's Christmas Wish
jessicac119 - Must Be Dreaming - (2 of 2)
Andrea Lena - The Arrangement
Susanj - Love's Gift
Shadowsblade - Shadowsblade: A Christmas Tale
tigger - Change of Seasons
Ricky - An Accidental Meeting
SamanthaAnn - Christmas Dreams
Jengrl - The Belles of Christmas
shiinaai - The Shut-in Santa Doesn't Want To Work
Maeryn Lamonte - A Dream of Elegance
Ray Drouillard - Christmas Wishes Granted
 
     Once again, these honorable mentions deserve to be here because they were entries and they all mattered to me. For every contest, the stories have to be somehow grouped and ranked. And these are just as important to me as those that tiered higher. So please, even though they did not place the highest does not make their content any less in mind to read. So I urge all of you, to read these entries that the authors had taken the time to create.
 
     Now, because of a screwup, Crazypagangurl's entry had been left out of my original posting. I have read and graded her entry. It is within the Honorable Mentions category, but due to the glitch and it's subsequent embarrassment for the author, I am awarding Crazypagangurl's entry of Charlie's Wish: A Fair At Christmas Time a prize of $35 for her excellent tale of a tg girl trying to make a memorable time for a person devastated by a disease to spend that time meaningfully together while they could still walk. A last chance to make memories. Thank you for your entry Crazypagangurl and please be understanding. It was BOTH our faults for this mixup, mine too, for not going back and browsing all the stories for potential mismarked entries.
 
Honorable Mention: Charlie's Wish: A Fair At Christmas Time by Crazypagangurl (1 x $35)
 
     The next line of awards go to those stories whom I felt were what completely satisfied the requirements and in addition were executed in particular ways that made them stand out highly. The reason this next category was created is because I had too many Tier 1 entries for the initial separation of stories. I had to create a category between the top 4 entries for Prizes of 1st place and 2nd-4th with what was left. That left me with 11 entries that I felt were top tier but I didn't want to expand the ranking by numbers to show how I graded them entirely. This is my Tier 1.5 category: stories strong enough to make the cut to be in Tier 1, but due to narrowing of the the prize tier to 4 top prizes had to be placed here. For these entries, I have duly awarded a Prize of $50 ea.
 
Tier 1.5 Awards (11 x $50)
 
Nessa M - This year, for sure!
Shauna - Day's Christmas ~ (Parts 1 - 4)
A Zesty Lemon - Christmas to Christmas
Nagrij - ....Is you
Polly Adler - The Answer To A Maiden's (?) Prayer Chapters (2 of 2)
Savannah Maun - For the Love of my Sister
StacyInLove - It's Love (11/19/2017 only inclusive one of 2)
SamanthaMD - Dreams are what you make of them
Leslie Moore - Christmas Suite
Nuuan - The story of Meri Kris Maas
AuPreviner - Cat Six
 
     Now for the honor of the Tier 1 entries that made the top 4 placements. Starting with Number 4, with a story about a wily, true to earth Marine Gunnery Sgt. who made the calls as he saw them and saved Rue and his family after Rue saves him from death, comes Jennifer Sue's entry A Punsylvania Christmas Gift.
 
4th Place Winner: A Punsylvania Christmas Gift by Jennifer Sue (1 x $150)
 
     For 3rd place, we had a newcomer this year to our site family whom brought excellent talent to this contest. She wrote a tale of a person whom had learned forgiveness despite tragedy and dealing with it in a unique way. The ending was quite perfect and made me think hard about how I could try and forgive those that wrong me myself. We had LadyDragon's entry of The Christmas Angel to show us that love can be given, even to those that failed us.
 
3rd Place Winner: The Christmas Angel by Ladydragon (1 x $150)
 
     Our Second Place entry was really an almost first place entry. It was very tough to decide between these two stories for placement. Melanie Brown did a superb job with coming up with a Sci-fi tale of that allowed an old man to live his life as a woman in a machine induced dreamstate: the fantasy of living the right way and being accepted. This story was highly thought out, very succinct in execution and length of scenes. All in all a very enjoyable piece that had the right stuff. I give you Melanie Brown's entry of A Girl Park Christmas.
 
2nd Place Winner: A Girl Park Christmas by Melanie Brown (1 x $150)
 
     Now for our top Finalist. This author wrote a story that in my mind, played out as a very touching movie. A selfless sacrifice that wound up being a quest for the recipient of that sacrifice to seek out the donor. The story had a second part that was not included in the original posting that was added a day or two later that made the entire story come together. All in all, I would love to see this story actually enacted as movie. I give you Casey Brooke's story of S.L.E.P. - Sacrificial Life Extension Project and S.L.E.P.- Homecoming!
 
1st Place Winner: S.L.E.P. - Sacrificial Life Extension Project and S.L.E.P.- Homecoming by Casey Brooke (1 x $250)
 
     Well, that is it for this year. Again, If any of you have any questions please feel free to pm me and I will discuss information pertinent to your entries. All of you did a real great job and I enjoyed reading these. Thank you authors for entering this contest and to all the readers who took the time to read them. Our site is unique in that we have a family atmosphere amongst our authors and every one of your entries was important to me, no matter how they placed. It is a unique part of yourself that you had given to me to read personally. I treasure that. Very much so.
 
     So everyone who has won (And everyone whom had entered did!) please pm me with your decision to have the prize money either paypalled or money ordered to you and the information I would need to get it to you.
 
Merry Christmas and have a happy New Year!

Sephrena

Comments

Congratulations to all

Your stories gave me a lot of enjoyment. I wish in a way I could have entered but I have established a tradition of posting my annual Christmas caption story on Christmas morning on my blog and at the Haven as part of the Christmas Calendar. That tradition was more important to me than meeting the contest deadline but I was glad to see so many entries.

Commentator
Visit my Caption Blog: Dawn's Girly Site

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Very humbled

Avia Conner's picture

I’m completely humbled by your selection. All the submissions were extraordinary. Thank you!

Thank you Sephrena and the authors!

I'd like to thank the authors for all the great stories plus a HUGE thank you for Sephrena for all the hard work she puts in to set up and run the contest. The contests bring a challenge and the entries show how different we are to be able to come up with such different stories within the same guidelines!

We should all thank Sephrena for her efforts!

Boys will be girls... if they're lucky!

Jennifer Sue

Well,

because of an incident, I will no longer conduct any further contests. My point in having them is to showcase ability, not to create divisiveness. I will accept total responsibility for this fiasco and let it end quietly with this. I had fun running them, fun contributing and giving back to our community. But now... it is no longer fun for me. I love all of you and your talent.

I retire now before I do something to allow another person to hate me. I apologize from the very depths of my soul. Thank you.

Sephrena

Sending you love.

Whatever has happened has hurt you when you had good intentions.
Thank you for your efforts.
Savannah

It is sad to hear of you retiring from these contests...

...but thank you so very much for your time, generosity, and effort to bring such a magical collection of stories together for us all! I truly wish you a wonderful holiday season (what remains of it now)... and health, happiness, and the fulfillment of your dreams in the new year.

While I am stunned to have received any attention for my story... a prize was never really my intention for writing. So in the spirit of giving this season... please donate my prize to the charity of your choice Sephrena.

Joyous Hugs Always (and thank you again),
Stacy

Ditto!

AuPreviner's picture

Sephrena,

I agree with Stacy. Please donate mine to the charity of your choice. I too just wanted the challenge.

I am so humbled. I read so many good stories. I am surprised I was even mentioned.

I would hope that you consider setting up a judging panel and continue the idea of a contest, even if you don't judge them yourself. Much of the reason I happened on this site was the way the contests brought out the best in authors.

And thank you for a Christmas challenge. I sat on it for two weeks before Cat Six hit me up side the server and I had to download it. ;-)

Blessings and Merci Mille Fois,

AuP


"Love is like linens; after changed the sweeter." – John Fletcher (1579–1625)

An idea

I thought about entering, but didn’t want to break from A Second Chance. If I had won, my idea would be to donate the winnings to the site. I know some of you really need the cash, but if you don’t, a donation may be a sweet Christmas gift to all of us.

Dawn

Delighted

to get an Honourable Mention.

My first entry to a contest was a pleasure to consider even taken part never mind actually entering.

I am more than happy with the number of Kudos and had a lot of fun and enjoyment creating the story.

I have enjoyed the experience and will use it as a learning curve to develop my written talents.

Well done to all who took up the invite to enter and to the contest winner Casey Book.

It is sad to learn you will retire as the fun has gone out of organising the contest.

Love and hugs to you for all that you give to our community.

Sam

SamanthaAnn

Congrats

Congratulations to all who won, and congratulations to Casey Brooke.

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Congratulations to all...

Congratulations to all those who braved the scrutiny of our contest maven. There was a lot of hard work and sacrifice on her part as well...

Congratulations... You are all winners!

Hugs,
Leila

Christmas Presents For Everyone!

Dear Sephrena,

Thank you very much for creating and stewarding the story contest through to the end. Your efforts and good intentions are impressive. I am sorry that you are not feeling well and sad that there was a hitch in making this a perfect contest.

But, I want you to know that it was perfect for me. Thank you for acknowledging "Christmas Suite" as worthy of a cash award. Please see that the money is used to help pay the bills at BigCloset TopShelf.

Hopefully, more people will step forward to assist you so that the contest responsibilities are shared by others. A group of ten volunteers means you would always have three to five judges to make each contest impartial and easier on you. With five judges, authors could even enter and judge, too.

We can all pitch in to brainstorm and assist to help keep your project alive.

Christmas Story Contest

I am happy to be picked as an honorable mention alongside all those wonderful stories. I really have fun doing something different like this for me anyway. Sorry to hear you won't be hosting the contest again, but when you get criticism for hard volunteer work, I understand completely.

Hugs, Karen

Thank you.

I know I am new to these parts, but I wanted to thank Sephrena Lynn Miller for the work she has done here. Thank you!

If nobody minds me saying so, I think it would be a shame if this was the last contest that this site held. I see them as having a vital function. Take me as an example, this contest motivated me to post a story. Without the contest as a frame work, I think I would have been too scared to post my normal work.

Again thank you for all your hard work.

- A Zesty Lemon.

I know these boxes are for saying something smart or witty, but even after all these years, that eludes me...

http://www.lemontreebay.rtb-uni.org/

Thank you for running the contest

Sorry that you are bummed about it after all your hard work. I'm absolutely sure it brightened up many lives over the holidays reading and writing stories that would never have been done without your efforts (it certainly did mine). Sad we won't see your contests continue. :-(

All Great stories

They are all great stories, wish everybody could be number 1 on the list KUDOS and thank you to all

Contest

I would miss Sephrena hosting these contest. This is the first one I have entered and I have to say thank you to Sephrena for prodding me to enter the contest. I also want to thank everyone that read The Christmas Angel as well and Snarfles for his help on the story.

Scarlett.jpg“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

Love

Andrea Lena's picture

You

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena