Congrats to you and sorry it was let down by how it has been handled so weirdly. Thank you for expressing so eloquently why the whole thing made everyone who entered and didn't win feel minimized, as well as the honorable mentions being treated as afterthoughts, that really was poorly thought out. The whole announcement felt like it had no hype leading up to it, you are so right it could have been done in a way that had us rooting for the writers who made the cut. And the snarkily tone deaf comment of one judge being included was genuinely bizarre and has led to a lot of the ill will along with all of the other rule breaking glitches. I also thought the length of the pieces was odd, being relatively new to Medium myself I was careful to make sure my entry fit the general Medium aimed for reading time. It does feel a bit unfair that so many of us tried to fit Medium's standards and they themselves ignored them in many respects with the big four.

Thanks for acknowledging this stuff, and congrats again, you should feel proud, none of this other stuff is on the writers really and it's an awesome achievement.