How Rising Stars are Selected

Celebrating Writing.Com's Rising Stars:

ID: 1163726   (Rated: E) RISING STARS--HISTORY & OVERVIEW  A one-stop mini-tour of Rising Stars Program, 2006-2011 by Gabriella

HOW RISING STARS ARE SELECTED:

Rising Stars Project was designed to provide a venue for sponsors (drawn from the population of yellow,
blue, and purple suitcases) to celebrate, and reward writers with black suitcases for hard work, quality
writing, demonstrating real potential, and taking an active role in the community.

Rising Stars are selected exclusively from the population of registered authors with black suitcases.
We use this set of criteria to guide us in our selections.

STRONG CANDIDATES MUST QUALIFY IN ALL OF THESE CATEGORIES:

1) Outstanding writing:

This is a subjective decision made by each individual sponsor.
The sponsor must rate his/her candidate between 1 and 10.
A successful candidate must receive a rating between 8 and 10.
If this is a young writer with potential, the work may be rated between 7-10.
Final decisions are made by the Rising Stars team.

2) Quality writing and exceptional potential; the author is an individual
who works hard, pays attention to reviews, and is making
impressive progress and will benefit from a boost;

3) Community involvement; this is not critical but it's a plus. The writer
is an individual who not only works on developing his/her writing skills,
but also demonstrates leadership capabilities in the effort he/she
makes to support the mission of Writing.Com. We are
interested in candidates with a history of reviewing works by fellow writers
on W.Com.

4) The writer MUST be an ACTIVE MEMBER of
Writing.Com for a minimum of 3 months before being selected for
Rising Star status. When considering a writer who has been a member
for a year or more, we will check the portfolio to see that there is
work that has been created during the past two months.

5) Greatest consideration is given to a writer who has a minimum
of 5 pieces in his/her portfolio.

6) A candidate MUST have a BIO. We ask our Sponsors to look
carefully at how frequently the candidate posts work as well as the
candidate's reviewing history. Both are valuable indicators as to
whether a writer is here on W.Com and writing regularly or just an
occasional visitor to the site.

Candidates are issued an invitation to join. In order to accept,
a candidate MUST:

1) agree to review 3 pieces, one each in the ports of fellow Rising Stars each month;
2) display a Rising Star signature in his/her port & recognize his/her sponsor
at the base of his/her bio for one month after being named a Rising Star;
3) use the Rising Stars program to stretch your writing capabilities and grow.


LOBBYING SPONSORS:

The process of selecting Rising Stars has been structured to ensure
that each SPONSOR will be able to make his/her selection independently
without being approached or lobbied by anyone, especially writers interested
in joining. Sponsors who are lobbied should make an effort to explain
that we discourage this, and expect that this will resolve the problem. If it does not,
the sponsor is encouraged to contact: Gabriella

Friendships on W.Com are important. Of course, if you have a
friend who is a talented writer, we're happy to encourage this
individual's participation in our program. However, we ask that you
think carefully before recommending a friend. It's tough for our
Rising Stars team to be put in a position to have to turn your candidate down
because you recommended him/her without giving his or her eligibility for our
program much thought.


THE ROLE OF THE SPONSOR

Sponsor's qualifications:

1) Preferred Author with a yellow suitcase;
2) Moderator with a blue suitcase;
3) Senior moderator with a purple suitcase.

Sponsors volunteer generous time, encouragement, and very often
wonderful gift point support as well. The role of the sponsor
is to be supportive and encouraging. There are no rules as to how
much a sponsor should invest in his/her Rising Star. However, many
wonderful friendships have developed out of strong mutually supportive
interactions between sponsors and awardees. When this occurs,
it's very rewarding !

Our Sponsors are a diverse interesting group, representative
of the immensely diverse population of Writing.Com. Sponsors
carry with them, a wide variety of interests, tastes, points-of-view,
backgrounds, and life experience. They can be expected to look for
and select Rising Stars across the vast community of black
suitcases. We're proud of the remarkable variety, ages, level of
experience and ability of our Rising Stars. We are committed to
maintaining an open democratic selection process that ensures
that Rising Stars are chosen, absent pressure or lobbying
from any member of the Writing.Com community.

Sponsors are expected to select work of the highest quality
by writers who seem to be genuinely interested in W.Com and
demonstrate a commitment to remaining active on the forum.


IMPORTANT: FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN BEING SELECTED:
What you can do to raise awareness of your work:

Work hard, write often, and pay attention to the reviews you receive.
Become active in the forum. Enter contests and REVIEW.
The more you participate in activites here, the more likely it is that senior authors will
become aware of you and your work. Nothing more is needed. Our
SPONSORS are out there looking around for good
candidates. The more visible you are on Writing.Com, the more
likely it is that you'll be discovered. Remember--Rising Stars
is a program set up to reward outstanding writing first and foremost.
If you know of a particularly talented writer with a black suitcase and you'd like
to recommend them, post the name:

ID: 1213540   (Rated: E) Recommend a Candidate to Rising Stars  We Welcome the Community's Suggestions for Candidates by Gabriella

Alas, you can't recommend yourself :)

ONE FINAL THOUGHT: being promoted to become a Rising Stars or yellow
suitcase is wonderful. But, since neither is guaranteed, the best
approach is to put your best foot forward, work hard and don't be satisfied
with posting work that is less than your best effort.
Do this for you, not to be promoted. This way
no matter what happens here, you'll feel good about yourself and
move forward in important ways that are best for you. This is a great way to build
a future as a writer.