We picked two winners of our first annual writing contest. Listeners responded to the prompt: A Time I Fucked Up. We got tons of submissions revealing your major fuck ups and tons revealing your little mess ups. One woman’s vacation slideshow accidentally included a naked selfie. Another woman almost killed a sheep. One did kill a chicken. And here’s what gringa Hope Torrents said to her Spanish mother-in-law on Thanksgiving. “Hoy es el dia del polvo,” which means, “Today is the the day of the fuck.”

What we know about good storytelling is that it doesn’t matter if the mistake was big or small. The story is not as much about what happened to a person, as what the storyteller makes of that experience.

Susan Buttenweiser is the winner featured on this episode. She teaches writing in New York City public schools, in a women’s prison and in a juvenile facility. In her story about getting into a bar fight, she discovers a persistent character trait--a need to be needed. Sometimes that need puts her in danger. But she re-channels that urge into motherhood.

Diego Saldana-Rojas, our audio producer and student in the class, responded to the prompt with a story about the time he fucked up the audio at Writing Class Radio’s live show. Diego is extremely hard on himself and takes the listener into a dark fantasy about torturing himself for repeated failures. Like Susan, Diego is looking to discover what it is about him, what is that persistent trait, that sets him up for failure.

Thank you for listening to Writing Class Radio. We hope you enjoyed hearing from our listeners.

Writing Class Radio is a podcast where you’ll hear true personal stories and learn a little about how to write your own stories. Writing Class Radio is equal parts heart and art. By heart we mean the truth in a story. By art we mean the craft of writing. No matter what’s going on in our lives, writing class is where we tell the truth. It’s where we work out our shit, and figure out who we are. There’s no place in the world like writing class and we want to bring you in.

Writing Class Radio is produced by Diego Saldana-Rojas, Virginia Lora,  Allison Langer (www.allisonlanger.com) and Andrea Askowitz (www.andreaaskowitz.com).

Visit our musicians page to learn about the talented and generous people who allowed us to use their songs.

There’s more writing class on our website(www.writingclassradio.com), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/writingclassradio/) and Twitter (@wrtgclassradio).

If you love the lessons you get on each episode, you can get them ALL in one place--our three-part video series. $20 for one part or $50 for the series. Click on Video Classes on our website.

Writing Class Radio is now open to submissions from our listeners. Go to the submissions page on our website for guidelines. We pay!

If you want to be a part of the movement that helps people better understand each other through storytelling, please go to writingclassradio.com and hit the DONATE button.

There’s no better way to understand ourselves and each other, than by writing and sharing our stories. Everyone has a story. What’s yours? and enjoy our craft talks. There’s no better way to understand ourselves and each other, than by writing and sharing our stories. Everyone has a story. What’s yours?