DUNE Pykewater Challenge

[rapture1 No.16934717]

The first pykewater challenge has ended and the winners selected. To the following who submitted, please check your emails:

WINNERS (to receive first place prize):
Sphagnology
P. Lebedev

HONORARY MENTIONS (to receive second place prize):
Rogue Insider
M. H--g (poster asked to remain anonymous)

After the winners and honorary mentions have confirmed their status, I will post the essays on the pykewater website. I will also try to provide feedback for the other anons who asked for it re: their submissions.

Thank you all for participating. All in all, I received a (very unanticipated) 36 submissions; many were very good, very provocative, and I sincerely appreciate the labor and consideration that went into each. It has been a privilege getting to see some of anons work "behind the scenes" and I cannot tell you how encouraging it is moving forward to the next competition.

I will develop the next prompt/prize set shortly, as well as providing a greater sense of the judging rubric and inviting other anons to judge for the next competition.

Just waiting now on 1 winner and 1 honorary to confirm--essays to be published soon!

[Anonymous No.16934741]

>>16934717
nice. when can we expect the next challenge? any hint on the subject?

[rapture1 No.16934787]

>>16934741
I'm developing that now. I'm going to open the conversation up to several anons on my discord and see if we can find some prompt/prize combination that really works. i intend to produce a more transparent judging rubric and a multi-person judging panel for the competitions going forward.

i'm thinking of launching a couple of competitions simultaneously--continuing with this "essay" model, which turned out quite successful, and offering alongside it things like nice folio editions, etc. right now i have lined up: Alice in Wonderland limited edition (folio); Lord of the rings illustrated edition (harper perennial); calvin and hobbes full box set.
i think it would be interesting to offer something like a more dedicated creative competition, whether that be creative writing or the more material arts of some kind--with corresponding prizes.

i'm also thinking of hosting a pykewater chess tournament in collaboration with chess.com--here, a custom, high-end chess board would be the end prize.

i've thought about mixing up the prompt-prize matrix as well. for instance, i'm not opposed to offering something more "material" and "consoomer" as a prize, something like a new PS5, if that prize comes at the end of a legitimate intellectual competition or exercise. my fear is that a prize like this would be popular at the expense of brining in quality submissions--but i am open to its possibility. need to talk to other anons.

what types of prizes or prompts would really interest you? i'm very open to suggestions and would really appreciate any and all feedback; my only goal is to build events that anons actually enjoy and want to participate in.

[Anonymous No.16934814]

>>16934787
>i've thought about mixing up the prompt-prize matrix as well. for instance, i'm not opposed to offering something more "material" and "consoomer" as a prize, something like a new PS5, if that prize comes at the end of a legitimate intellectual competition or exercise. my fear is that a prize like this would be popular at the expense of brining in quality submissions--but i am open to its possibility. need to talk to other anons.
Nah that's a bad idea IMO, nice book are a good incentive already and it makes it related to the contest so that's interesting too.
I didn't participate in the first challenge but I like what you're doing dude

[Anonymous No.16934819]

You can make the next contest tie into the holiday season. Maybe Valentine's Day

[Anonymous No.16934861]

>>16934717
>who asked for it re: their submissions.
What do you mean? Am I supposed to write you a new mail if I would lile some feedback?
Anyways, thanks rapture for the fun time, 36 submiddiond is a lot and wasn't it only 17 on November 30?

[rapture1 No.16934947]

>>16934814
Yeah that’s exactly my fear and i think you are ultimately right. It might come down to a question of marketing in the future, e.g. in trying to reach outside of /lit; but then the populations become fairly self-selecting and i am not sure its the route that would be best for the project as a whole. We shall see, though; finding tactics that might work in todays Instagram environment seems to require a willingness to “meet people halfway” and offer some materialistic stuff they respond to.
Thank you for your feedback, btw; very helpful.

>>16934819
I think that’s a great idea—having certain dedicated competitions around coordinating events, like holidays, would make sense. Will definitely develop along those lines—thanks for the idea!

>>16934861
A couple of anons specifically requested that, if they don’t win, if i could still edit/provide feedback on their essay and maybe help improve their overall writing. I’ve taught freshman writing seminars before and college writing more generally, so i’m not opposed to that—that kinda feedback is just gonna be a little bit more time on my end.
Turned out to be 37 submissions in total, 1 lingering one that i still considered in ultimate. What’s crazy is that going into the final night was 17, and I wasn’t expecting much if any last minute interest. Turns out /lit is a procrastinating bunch: roughly 20 submissions came in before i woke up on December 1st. I will say that a couple of them lacked virtually any legibility—but for the most part they were all well-written, well-thought through pieces. I was really, really surprised and really, really impressed.

[rapture1 No.16935527]

>>16934947

Now just waiting on 1 honorary to confirm. Wrapping up beautifully, boys; thank y'all again.

[tourist !!HwNKWFes53m No.16936706]

Very cool rapture. Thanks again for your effort, it is really generous of you to give 4 times as many prizes as you promised. I would be happy if you found some time to give me feedback, I think i could really profit from that.
Also looking forward to reading the winning essays, I am curious about the topics other anons wrote about.

[Anonymous No.16936767]

Excellent work. Thanks Rapture.

[Anonymous No.16936790]

>he delivered
oh, shit, excellent
I'll be sure to participate on the next one, dawg

[rapture1 No.16936958]

WINNING ESSAYS NOW UP:
pykewater.com/pykewater-challenge

thank you again to all you participated!


>>16936706
thank you for the great feedback. I will absolutely take a close look at your essay and provide as much feedback as possible.

>>16936767
>>16936790
thank you, gentlemen

[Anonymous No.16937115]

>>16936958
Based AF. Interesting essays. Will submit in the future.

[Anonymous No.16938024]

Bump for anons good essays

[Anonymous No.16938598]

>>16936958
These are way better than I thought they were going to be. Anons aren’t just pseuds after all. What was the worst one you received?

[Anonymous No.16939783]

>>16934787
>i've thought about mixing up the prompt-prize matrix as well. for instance, i'm not opposed to offering something more "material" and "consoomer" as a prize, something like a new PS5, if that prize comes at the end of a legitimate intellectual competition or exercise. my fear is that a prize like this would be popular at the expense of brining in quality submissions--but i am open to its possibility. need to talk to other anons.
A straight up cash prize would be best.

[Anonymous No.16940986]

Shame on the namefag and all other anons for participating in this dicksucking festival. No, I didn't have any stake in whatever was advertised but bullshit like this and the "lit quarterly" ought to stop.

[Anonymous No.16941118]

>>16940986
This is absurd. Out of all the dogshit posts on this board, this type is the one you don’t like?

[Anonymous No.16941122]

>>16940986
>>16941118
Please explain how this isn’t one of the best projects on /lit/ in the recent years.

[Anonymous No.16941715]

>>16941118
>>16941122
This. Not sure what the anon is on about, but this challenge thing is probably the most interesting thing on this board in a while.
Reading anons essays isn’t too bad, either.

This anon is just salty
>>16940986

[Anonymous No.16943410]

Bump for holy rapture

[Anonymous No.16943518]

>>16941122
What does it take to be a 'best project'? Off the top of my head (and *very* recently), we have lit quarterly (a *paid* literary journal with a very kind editor anon who has helped out many here), the Annotated Moby Dick, and the various readalongs we've had this year (for Moby Dick, Blood Meridian, etc). Then there's always our annual top 100 lists which - despite being shit themselves - are better than any equivalent lists from elsewhere. Going back farther you get Legacy of Totalitarianism and Hypersphere (though I admit it's been a long time since we've had anything near those).

An essay contest with a banal prompt and a dubious prize given by one of the board's two most 'prominent' tripfags? I mean, I suppose it's better than ~70% of the rest of the posts here, but I would stop short of calling it one of the best projects.

[Anonymous No.16944184]

Is this edition of Dune available for purchase?

[Anonymous No.16944228]

>>16944184
Yes https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/dune.html

[Anonymous No.16944442]

>>16943518
And what contributions do you make to the board, anon, beside being an insufferable gatekeeper?

[Anonymous No.16944492]

>>16944442
I answer questions that other anons ask, clearly.

[Anonymous No.16945847]

I really enjoyed reading the first of the two winner essays. Anon, if you are reading this, I would love to see you explore the idea of a frontier, including its implementation in Europe which you hint at, in a longer work. Great job, keep it up!