I’m going to choose the random winner first. Having pasted all the entries below, I’m going to now random.org to choose a random number between 1 and 32, and …
… umm, the winner is also one of the non-random winners I was planning to announce in the next post. (Really! The random number generator just backed up my non-random decision! :-)) So, trying this again …
… the new random winner is deire, who made me smile with her simple, elegant answer:
deire, email me your address at janni@simner.com, and when I get my author copies of Faerie Winter in the next few weeks, I’ll send one your way.
Non-random winners next post! In the meantime, all the entries are still pasted below–I really recommend reading them (and commenting) if you’d like small doses of belief in spring. Because you mostly did believe in spring, and if you didn’t, it was only because you saw things to love in winter as well.
supertailz: “Sometimes, when my thighs are so cold it feels bone-deep I am sure that Spring will never come to melt away the icicles that take up residence in my muscles. “ And, later: Spring wouldn’t be cruel enough to be like JUST WHEN YOU FIGURED OUT THIS WHOLE WINTER SHENANIGAN I’M TAKING IT AWAY. Right? thunderemerald: “I believe in prizes, and therefore I believe that February must end.” dolphingirl455: “I believe Spring will come, because if spring doesn’t come, Faerie Winter won’t come.” lnhammer (who’s disqualified from actually winning on account of living in the same house where the author copies will live :-)): “we in equatorial heights believe that / sunlight strengthens sooner than there in low lands” movingfinger: “plum and magnolia trees are blooming and a mockingbird who doesn’t know about the local evil crows is singing up a storm …” azang: “Yes, spring will come. It is inevitable, like death.” theironhoncho: “Isn’t it funny how the trees know?” cloudshaper2k points me to Stephen Curtis Chapman’s take on the matter. starlady38: “Spring will come again … otherwise we’d all be subject to the White Witch and her Winter …” authorwithin says “We wait in winter’s grip for spring,” and then draws a picture as well: “Within each snowflake lives the promise of spring.” desertmorn: “But at the core of even the most dormant seed, a tiny speck of light endures. That light is Hope.” brownkitty: “I believe that spring will come because the sun still rises.” artemisgrey: “Spring will banish grey / And green will show the way” papersky“Oh Spring will come / but not for a long time” galeni: “If the earth still turns, and I still breathe, then there will be a spring …” Meg Weathers: “i wholeheartedly believe in happy endings. so of course it will!” nolly: “Spring will come like a Slinky falling down stairs …” _twilight_“Cordiform burdens / leaves in disarray / And always late / with vivid green” bonesoffaerie: “… i think spring is coming. sadly. i really like winter.” deire: “I believe in spring even when it is snowing.” davidlubar“I believe spring never left. I just occasionally lose the ability to perceive it.” mellanhead: “It has been along cold winter that feels like it is never ending “ abgafford: “We are breaking out the shorts and flip flops … autumnbutturfly: “I see the buds bursting open, feel their urgency though this practice takes days. “ DotHutchison: “But the other winters…the mental winters that leave me stripped bare as the northern trees, a skeleton of memory and sorrow that yields to the frigid winds and wonders if spring and growth will ever come, I’ve experienced those as well …” yukinakid“See, the thing about the seasons is that no matter where you are, it’s always spring somewhere.”