We recently received a very disheartening anonymous letter from a songwriter who had entered our new-this-year lyrics-only category of Songwriting Competition '93. The writer had apparently been misled by the fact that for the very first time he/she received a copy of Louisville Music News and assumed that he/she was a finalist because our contest promised that winners would be notified.
The writer went on to say that he/she had learned their lesson and wouldn't be entering the contest next year and asked that we reconsider our policy for the sake of other naive and sensitive souls.
The closing paragraph was especially upsetting: "I'm drawing my head back into my shell and putting my writing back in the drawer and refusing to sign this. Anonymous once again feels good."
Upsetting a sensitive songwriter (and what songwriter isn't sensitive?) is the last thing we would want to do. Sending to all contest entrants a copy of Louisville Music News in which the LASC newsletter listed the finalists in the eleven categories was, we thought, an efficient way of letting them know if they had won. And the names of the non-finalists were not listed. We thought everyone would want to know the results of the contest; we also thought they might like to give the rest of the newsletter and newspaper a read.
Frankly, it never occurred to us that an entrant would not want the results mailed to them. (And only one person in the whole world ever glimpsed the names of the entrants and even then no note was taken of who sent what lyric, etc.) Nevertheless, we're very sorry that the writer was upset and we hope he/ she will reconsider their decision to draw their head back into their shell and put their writing back in the drawer.
That would be a shame.