Share Your Knowledge! Essay Contest

I’m excited to announce the winners of the Share Your Knowledge Essay Contest 2022!

This fall, I held a contest for new informational blog posts, with cash prizes: the Share Your Knowledge! Essay Contest.

Informational blog posts are personalized introductions to topics of interest, framing the topic in an approachable, interesting, inspiring way. It’s like a Wikipedia article, but more personable, friendly, and opinionated.

I held this contest to:

raise awareness about the informational blog post genre, and to help it to spread
to read pieces in the genre that I would be interested in learning more about, but might not otherwise have time to research or write about myself
to encourage people to write and share blog posts,
and to notice and enjoy the second-order effects of having more excellent writing about topics of interest in the world!

We received 26 valid submissions for this contest! I was tremendously impressed by the quality and the quantity of the submissions.

And now, without further ado, here are the final winners:

First place: booritney’s ultimate guide to meal prep by booritney

Self-knowledge is extremely sexy. Good follow-through is extremely sexy. Taking care of yourself is extremely sexy. Meal prep is a training ground for all three. Give it a try, and send me pictures of your meal prep when you do. Let’s be extremely sexy together.

This piece is an incredible demonstration of the informational blog post genre. It’s extremely thorough, dedicated to a very practical and useful topic, and is oozing with joy and humor. Brit makes a compelling, personal, and visually enticing case for meal prep, and gives you everything you need to know to get started.

As first place winner, Brit will receive $1,000. Congratulations, friend!

You can follow Brit on Twitter, or find more from her on her website.

Second place: Sound to Song: A Comprehensive Intro to Music Production For Beginners by kh_author

As humans we have a natural drive to influence the world around us. One of the primary ways we do that is by creating things. Music is an expression of that sacred creative act… What do you want your music to say?

Keith’s submission is an extremely ambitious piece. It covers an impressively wide range of topics related to music production—music theory, songwriting, production, and more—aimed at helping a complete beginner begin to create music. It also shares stories about music in his life, about his childhood relationship with his Dad, and his decision to start making music after failing to find music he could legally license for creating the audiobook of his novel. This piece will give someone who longs to make music a huge start in their journey, and will inspire people to get started, too.

As second place winner, Keith will receive $500. Congratulations, friend!

You can follow Keith on Twitter, or find more from him on his website.

Third place: Sadalsuud’s Astrology Dice Guide by sadalsvvd

One divinatory tool has unexpectedly caught my fixation for its ease of use, brevity, and pointedness: astrology dice, or astro dice…If you don’t know astrology, astro dice are actually a great way to learn!

Sadalsuud is a demonstrated master at the art of writing the informational blog post. This piece gives a thorough treatment to the use of astrology dice as a divination method. As he points out, the dice and this article also offer an excellent introduction to astrology more broadly—perhaps in a way that’s even more accessible than Sadalsuud’s previous guide to reading your natal chart—which will undoubtedly be useful to many people as interest in astrology continues to grow.

As third place winner, Sadalsuud will receive $300. Congratulations, friend!

You can subscribe to Sadalsuud’s Substack, follow him on Twitter, or browse his ever-growing Obsidian knowledge base.

All Submissions

Here were all of the other submissions for the essay contest:

There are some absolutely lovely pieces in here! If a title or a topic catches your fancy, or your friend submitted an essay, I’d invite you to take the time to read their piece and celebrate them for their hard work. Please also consider sharing a piece that inspires you or helps you with a friend who might appreciate it.

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who submitted essays for this contest! I hope you had fun writing your pieces and that you found the process rewarding. I also hope you’ll keep writing, whether it’s more informational blog posts or something in another genre. In my experience, sharing your writing online transforms your life and also the world.

If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to write a tweet or thread about your piece! The world wants to read what you have to share!

Many thanks to Brent and Ben for making this contest possible! I am so grateful to you for believing in me and this contest, and for all the support you have given me. We did a wonderful thing together, and I am excited to see what’s next!

Thanks also to the judges—Brent, Jane, and Taalumot! Deciding on the winners was the most challenging part of this contest for me, and I am so grateful you lent me your support, advice, and taste as I made that decision. Thank you for generously offering your time and skills to supporting this contest.

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