I am a member of Faithwriters and have found it be a very worthwhile place to hang out.

Just to clear up a few things: The 120/year is only for those who wish to belong to the Faithwriters 500 - those who commit to supporting the site to pay for the enormous amount of time and effor that goes into maintaining a site of that size and magnitude.

The Challenge guidelines were changed to accomodate some very real issues: winners were winning by inviting unlimited amounts of friends to read and vote for them--without reading any of the other articles. Winning articles would sometimes be so full of mistakes, bad grammar, incorrect punctuation that it was a bad reflection for the whole site. Editors Choice consists of five panels of judges who rate each article on criteria with a dollop of grace for a misspelling or two. I'm on one of the panels, and it is very fair. Since the site also exists to improve the writing skills of its members, it is important that winning articles are well-written. Publishers DO visit the site and oftentimes will contact members for possible assignments based on their work.

So, when articles that were winning solely on the number of friends one had, a change needed to be made.

The new judging is going well and the winning articles are truly deserving. They are judged on six criteria, with each guideline allowing a rating of 0-5. Then the eight highest scoring entries are chosen from the panel. Each judge is not allowed to reveal their choice until the end, and that is sent to a moderator so no one judge can influence any other.

On another note: I subscribe to the $36 a year private message system that has netted me two writing gigs for startup newspapers as well as publication in an established Christian newspaper.

I will look for your articles, Donna, and leave some comments if I can find them.

Toni, I hope you come back!