I was surprised to see that the Merriweathers were actually being instituted. I'd heard some discussion about it a year ago, but nothing since, so I assumed that the logistics were too difficult to overcome.
Sheila, for the record, this is *not* the same thing as the original proposal for the Merriweathers, which was intended to be specifically for new authors. In the topic on the other mbs, Zoomway emphasizes this point. The Merriweathers are a reasonable enough name for any FoLC award, since the Kerths are already taken!
Marilyn, a quick question for you:
Because RWA is such a close-knit group, it's common to receive an entry that you recognize or from someone you may know. If it's from your absolute bestest buddy, you probably would have trouble being objective (or at least you'd worry that others would question your objectivity). But I got an entry from someone I know casually and felt able to judge it fairly.
I didn't google for info
but could I ask how you knew it was your friend's entry? Doesn't the gatekeeper remove the author's name and title from the story before the judges get them? I ask about this because the gatekeeper concept seriously intrigues me. We had a teacher who used to assign numbers to us so she could judge our essays without prejudging them by their authors; I always thought she must have recognized our handwriting and that it was moot, but computers don't have such distinctive fonts available!
But I agree with Sheila that the Merriweathers should be approached as a chance to have your work objectively judged, and your experience, Marilyn, seems to negate that.
I'd started to write something else and decided it would be wiser not to do so. :rolleyes: I will merely say, instead, that Sheila's suggestion that the Merriweathers consider only new fics sounds like a wonderful idea to me. It will solve any nagging doubts regarding the difficulty to judges in reading stories that they might identify, since FoLCdom has sadly been partly polarized and some might feel anxious at not knowing who's involved. It will also allow the Merriweather Committee to preserve the anonymity that they seem to feel is so important, without any implications of unfair play.
Of course, Sheila and Lynn and I aren't part of the M-Com, and it's up to Katrinalee to make that decision. It's been two days since her last post here, and we don't even know if she's revisited this thread at all. I hope she does come back and clarify some of the questions that have been asked here.
Argh. Wrote one last thing and decided to delete that too. Self-control is a wonderful thing.
Hazel
