The Golden Quill Award
for good writing on the World Wide Web
given once a month since February 1999 by Shirley McCue

About the Award  ·  What I Read For  ·  How to Apply  ·  If You Win  ·  The Roll of Honor

About the Award

I taught English at a public high school in Vermont for thirty-four years, and retired in June of 1997 with a garden I had neglected and a stack of novels I had been meaning to read since the Carter administration. Last fall my grandson set me up with a computer and an account, and showed me how to wander from page to page. I have been wandering ever since.

What I found surprised me. Under the blinking letters and the spinning globes, there is a great deal of good writing on the Web, most of it by people who would never call themselves writers: a retired librarian's poems, a grandfather's bedtime stories, a chef's small essays about butter and salt. Nobody grades it. Nobody tells these people that what they did was good. It seemed to me that somebody ought to.

So once a month, I choose one site whose writing I admire and give it the Golden Quill. It is not a contest, there is no fee, and there is no prize except the badge, a place on the Roll of Honor and a note from me about why. I read every site myself. I turn down most of the applications I receive, about nine in ten, and I always write back to say why, as gently as I can manage. Old habits.

What I Read For

1. The writing is your own. Poems, stories, essays, reviews, journals, a serial, a family history, a how-to with a voice in it. Pages of famous poems retyped from an anthology do not qualify, however lovingly chosen.

2. There is enough of it. At least three finished pieces, or one long one. "Coming soon" is not a piece.

3. It is made with care. Spelling, punctuation, grammar. I forgive a typo; we all make them. I do not forgive "it's" for "its" twice on the same page.

4. It can be read. Dark words on a light background, or light on dark, in a size a grown person can read without leaning in. No paragraphs laid over a busy pattern. No music that starts by itself; people often read late at night, and some of them read at work.

5. It sounds like someone. This is the one I cannot explain and cannot do without. When I have read your page I should feel I have met you.

6. The pages work. Links go where they say they go, and the pictures come up.

How to Apply

Send me an e-mail at [email protected] with the words Golden Quill in the subject line, and tell me:

• the name of your site and its address,
• your name, or the name you write under,
• which three pieces you would like me to read first, and
• anything else you would like me to know. Not required, but I enjoy it.

You may nominate someone else's site, and I rather wish more people would. Please apply no more than once every six months for the same site. I answer every letter, usually within three weeks; if it has been longer, my garden has won, and a polite reminder is welcome.

If You Win

You will receive a note from me, and your site will be added to the Roll of Honor on the first of the month. Save the quill to your own space (right-click it and choose Save Image As, or Save Picture As) and put it on your site with a link back to this page, like so:

Change the month in the alt text to yours. You may put it anywhere you like, though I confess I prefer to see it near the writing rather than above it. The work is the point. The badge only points at it.

Read the Roll of Honor and this month's note from the judge »

Readers since February 1, 1999:


Shirley McCue · [email protected]
Last updated: Thursday, September 2, 1999
© 1999 Shirley McCue · Background from Tilework