And the winner is...

Thanks to everyone who entered my rather unusual giveaway. The entries have been read, the short list created, the votes tallied... etcetera etcetera. And Valerie Khoo, the powerhouse behind the Sydney Writers' Centre has put on her sorting hat and judged the worthy winner.

Now, if this were the Academy Awards or something, I'd be cracking jokes here in an effort to build tension. I would have announced the short list, who would be sitting in the auditorium wearing their friendly, self-deprecating, oh-no-it-won't-be-me (please-let-it-be-me) faces. The cameras would be closing in, hoping to catch a tiny glimpse of 'Good God NO! It can't be her' as the winner is announced.

But we're on a blog, in the Fibro. So I'll just get on with it, shall I?

The winner is Candice. Her winning entry read like this:

“We’re looking for Spark.”
“Really? Again?”
“Yeah. We last saw him walking along the fence”.
“In which direction?”
“Um, towards your house.”
“Okay kids. Let me just finish writing this article, then we’ll go look for Sparky together”.

Hi Allison,
I'd love to talk to you about developing my feature writing for magazines career. I'm about to move interstate with my husband, and this is the perfect opportunity to try and go full time with my writing. I've completed the SWC feature writing course, and I've had one article published in Good Reading Magazine and another about to be published in a local magazine.

I'd love (!!!!) to discuss the business of freelancing and talk to you about staying passionate about a topic weeks after pitching the original idea.

Thank you for this great competition and congrats with your 500th post!

You're an inspiration.

Regards, Candice 

Note the creative use of 'spark' (which is what we were, after all, searching for), a little CV to show us that she's serious, clever insertion of past SWC experience (use everything you've got people) and a splendid-but-not-overdone bit of sucking up compliment at the end.

Perfect.

Can't wait to chat, Candice. Drop me an email via the contact me thingy on my Blogger profile and we'll get started!

Thanks to everyone who entered. If Candice gives me a good reference, I'll look at doing it again in a few months' time when I hit the big two years on the blog. In the meantime, look out for my first Facebook chat over the next few weeks. I've even got a few guest stars lined up! Pop over and join the Fibro's Facebook community for updates.

[image: prettylittlelies via weheartit]