Official Recap and Awards Ceremony!

We never know who is coming and we can't see you when you are here. We have your words, and that is all. The fantasy that we cling to is that J is out and about spreading glitter in the form of comments and H and I are back home holding down the tent. And you come for the greatest, most friendly show on earth. Thanks for making it true!
So Heather got a chance to pick Casey's brain(thanks Casey for the feedback and the awesome support). And I got a chance to pick my own and these were the things that we came up with: We want to create a place where folks could discover new blogs and new books, a place for people to come together to see each other and be seen.

The work of this blog is transparency. It has promotional possibilities, educational, and social. The point is to come here and be. To SEE each other. To provide a map to the inconceivable, the writer's blogosphere. We do the research and gathering, but it only works when you come and pay attention. And that includes paying attention to your neighbors. They are the stars. The stops. The players. The cheerers-on. Thanks for letting that begin. Stay around and let us see where it goes.


And help us do it better. Like Casey, give us your two cents. Leave it in the comments. Find the feedback form along the side. Submit your questions in the Ask Us Anything form. Join us in our circus ring, perform or have the circus come to your town. We would love to see you, sign up your blog and describe it for us. We will design our clues and a theme just for you. Maybe someday you will do it for us. This is a community and we love you people!


Heather's rhymes awesomely capture the beauties of our Debut Run # 2. Go check out these brainchildren, buy them, sign up, and love up their authors.

STOP 1:

sarcastic and funny, and a bit of a sleuth
an outsider, a newbie, a little uncouth
living in quiet, he takes his Days Dark
lip reading secrets, mystery's lark.

death comes a knockin' while on the school trip,
so smiley and he, into truth, take a dip.
uncovering secrets, about everyone
much wit is revealed before Hamburger's done.
The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin Josh Berk

STOP 2:
she's charmed and she's popular--until her last Fall

seven do-overs in total as death does a stall

day, by day, by day, she retries
her mistakes, her wastes, her life, her lies.

Before moving forward she first must move back

and put meaning within everything that did lack
again and again and again she must right
the flaws in herself and the dark for the light.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver


STOP 3

random facts have a calming effect on the day
when the school bell rings out--one's expected to play
with the anomalous mass of bully and friend
which is which? it's so hard to know in the end.

Reinvention makes sense, as do numbers galore
and inventions and science they never did bore
one Thomas Edison or, one eddy, at all
and learning social cues puts you ahead of the ball.

The Reinvention of Edison Thomas by Jacqueline Houtman


STOP 4
19th century america was enthralled with the sisters,

real foxes and tricksters of mrs. and misters.
cracking knuckles and joints, they pretended the Dead

were speaking aloud, "We Hear them," they said.

never caught in the lie until love came to call
the guilt of their life catches up with them all
or at least with the one who stands to lose most
is it possible to give up your life for fake ghost?

We Hear the Dead by Dianne Salerni


STOP 5

not a book to be searched or one title to read
but a different debut coming out of the seed
a forum to chat, to play and to Talk
no need to bring anything, Tracy supplies Chalk.

whether writing that draft or that pesky revision
Crossing out adjectives, beating into submission
or seeking for agents, or just wanting to find
other like minded writers of your very own kind.

Tracy Edward Wymar of Crossing Chalk and his new message board Chalk Talk.

The Race:
Drama at the tent: squealing with each new arrival, puking bunnies and tutus and donkeys, disruptive neighbors(DARN THEM), and for added difficulty, Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall bearing googlable similarities to Fallen by Lauren Kate(who knew!). Charmed by cheerers on, hearts rising to our throats at pleas of help, the tent was a tense and tumultuous place. WE LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!!!!!

The fast racers all rolled into Tracy's at the same time and then returned to unscramble the phrase: Here Ye, Here ye, free books to the witty.

Finishers:
Crystal Cook
Sarah Mullen Gilbert
Jeff Baird
Casey McCormick
Kelly Freaking Polark
Dena Daw
Kris Asselin
Serenissima (aka Jeanne)
Elana Johnson

Congratulations to all! We have heard that these clues were hard! As was the unscrambling!

Favorite comments:

At Josh Berk's blog:

Casey:

Has anyone told you how awesome you are lately? Yes? I thought so. (Awesome, Casey!)

Kelly:

Most excellent vlog of MBT Theater, Sir Josh.
My only wish is that the tune "Boob Sweat" makes it to Itunes so I can purchase it and play it over and over until it becomes one of my Top 25 Played songs. (Knowing Kelly, the threshold a song would have to pass to be in the top 25 most played songs in her iTunes is like 8,000.)

At Lauren Oliver's blog:

Elana:

Oh my heck. My desk is my dining room table too. Tablers unite!! (It's all about the lingo!)

Laura:

I'm wondering what you do on the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh days too? :) (Me too! She's a writer and a superhero. She's probably dating Clark Kent Jr. too.)

Dena:

My day is much less interesting than yours, I'm afraid. Flying to New York to promote my best seller book is way overrated. Not to mention the book signing I did for all of those people waiting in the rain...camped out and what not. Then I had to drag my butt out of the Hilton and to a conference to be recognized and honored with awards and applause...god, how boring. All I really wanted to do was sit in my private sauna and have a margarita or two. Oh well, I guess I'm off to do that now.... (I maybe believed her for like a split second)

Jeanne:

A mango, an egg
and a salute to the Sun,
So different from me,
and my pop tart on the run.

(She was channeling the true spirit off W.I.B.I.J.?!)

At Jacqueline Houtman's blog:

Dena:

My granddad used to fry spam for breakfast and have it with eggs. Yum. But I wouldn't recommend that...he also ate squirrels. (I can't decide which part is funnier, that Dena's own grandfather consumed her greatest fear or that squirrels are her greatest fear. Now, I know she's going to go into a long-winded comment about how I have irrational Kabourpphobia (Yeah, that's right D, my fear has a name!) but pincers are so much scarier than fur ball tails! -J) (It's awesome that Dena can bring squirrels into almost all WIBIJ games)

Jeanne:

The "AM" in SPAM stands for HAM.
That much I can see.
But with SPIT and SPLEEN and SPECIMEN,
The "SP" frightens me.

(And again)

At Dianne Salerni's blog:

Sarah:

As for the question [Have you ever been on a date stranger than this?], I don't know if it was technically a date, but my husband and I spent Valentine's Day milking cows :) (Holy cow, that's romantic! And gross ;)

Jeanne:

Nooky near the dead,
Some find that hot?
Um, I dunno,
Well, okay, why not?

(And again!)

At Tracy's blog:

Jeanne:There's a guy I know,

A miserly fellow,
He keeps armpit-stained shirts,
and dyes them yellow.

(And yet again!!)

Thank you, again, to everyone who participated and commented!

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for:

THE AWARDS CEREMONY!

(Presented by Jonathon)

The top spot and first place, by a few moments goes to...

Crystal!

Best comment was extremely hard to choose. There were so many great comments, as you can see above. One person totally brought it and made us proud. We couldn't choose just one because all were so impressive! The winner of best comment is...

Jeanne!

Heather removes her rhyming top hat: Serenissima is AWESOME with the rhyming clues. I BOW TO HER RHYMING AWESOMENESS!


Crystal and Jeanne please email us with address information and a book chosen from this list.

But what of the crafty third book we have to give away you may be asking? Not so easy to distribute! We answer. You are all are so fantastic! Encouraging, tweeting, commenting with brilliance! Hmm, who gets the third? Just because we are tricky and hoping to see more of you here, we will give it away at the next WIBIJ game in two weeks! Be there (HERE) or be square!