Writing Battle spring micro!

The "WB Official Judges" -- the folks deciding the two finalists in each genre (top 16 to top 2) -- are all people from our real-life community in Halifax, NS. Eventually, we'll have a page and write-ups on the regulars, but they're a fairly diverse group -- although they probably skew slightly more educated than a random set up people. Teona and I are the dummies of the group. There's a few Americans, and a few Canadians that were born outside of Canada. The important thing is that they're all avid readers of fiction (although a few of them also write). There is zero chance that any of them see Debrief, or the WB forums, and their Official Judge accounts don't allow them to see those pages (they don't have access to them). None of them participate in NYCM or WB or would be searching around on Discord.

As far as demographics, they will be 50/50 men/women. I'm going to try to diversify the age range a bit for future Battles, because the ages are 30-55, and I would like to make that more like 20-75.

The judging will be done at our (edit: real life house haha not a digital WB house)-- everyone will bring their laptops -- and they will not be able to see the tournament structure... so they don't know the seeding or how each story did in their house. So they're blindly reading the two stories in a Duel and choosing their favourite. Each match is best-of-three, and although there will likely be some discussions, the judges will not be openly debating their choices. WB Official Judges do not give feedback, although of course the Industry Judges do as per normal.

It's going to be a lot of fun! I think for those that don't mind having their picture taken, we'll do a social media post of the judging. I think we're going to have it catered -- maybe a bit of beer and wine :)