For Online Fiction, the envelope please...
Accepting First Prize for Eats is Miriam Zellnik

Well, before they turn up the background music and cut me off, I'd better clutch my award statuette to my breast and smile through my tears as I mumble "Thanks to... um..." Glancing surreptitiously at the crumpled index card in my hand. "Oh yeah.... to all my loved ones who have always stood by me... And who will continue to be there for me right about now, as I collect unemployment for the next 6 months and work on researching and writing my mystery novel, set in 1893 Portland." A gasp from the masses; can it be true? Has she really publically admitted leeching off the state while she writes - oh the horror! - genre fiction!? And historical genre fiction at that? Whattsa matter, you got a problem with that? I've paid into the system for all these years, and I was laid off honorably... Might as well work it, baby. Of course, if anyone wants to offer me a fabulous high-paying job, or even just give me little "it's ok" ego pats, feel free to email me at mim@q7.com. On that note, I'll triumphantly raise my statuette overhead in a victory gesture and stride offstage back into my sublime little life.

In the category of Best Conversational Post:
Accepting First Prize for her conversational post is Donna deMedicis

I accept this award in the name of middle-aged, overweight women everywhere, who struggle off to work every day in order to pay the mortgage and internet provider, and then come home and try to make words appear on computer monitors.

I would like to thank the combined staffs of Women Online Worldwide
(http://www.wowwomen.com) and The WELL for allowing me to write a piece, publish a piece, and enter a piece in this contest, all without buying a 32 cent stamp.

Additionally, I would like to thank those very wonderful judges who selected me as a First Place Winner, although they did NOT select me as the Grand Prize Winner, wherein I would have won $500. Please note that while I am NOT bitter, I was rather counting on the money, and if each judge could perhaps forward me $50, I would be much less NOT bitter.

I would like to specifically thank Melynn Allison, Cath Junge, Deborah Mays, Marta Myska, Leslie O'Leary, Christine M. Peters, Sharon Schulze, and Tammy Zorn for encouraging me to write. To the numerous friends whose names I must leave off: The same judges who wouldn't give me the $500 are limiting me to 200 words. Blame them.

To my mother and sister, Ella and Lisa -- many thanks. I'll get tremendous points for including them in my Acceptance Speech.

And last of all, to the "Cousins" -- Danielle, Joshua and Chris -- Three little kids who inspired my winning piece, and who, although they are exceptionally cool, are not internet-savvy enough to realize that their Mama and Aunt Donna wrote a column about them, and who, if they were informed of this fact, would probably take me to court.

For Best Web Writing using Hyperlinks:
Accepting First Prize for No Pink is Christy Sheffield Sanford

I'm delighted to accept The Well's prize for the Best Web Writing Using Hyperlinks. I'm thrilled that the judges liked my story of love, death and friendship. Frames played a major part in the piece. I'm indebted to Gen Aris, Marjorie Luesebrink and Christian Crumlish for helping me get "No Pink" to go across platforms. Special thanks to Jeff Parker at _Salt Hill_ for hosting the piece and Damon Sauve for including "No Pink" in issue 3 of _Oyster Boy_. As always, I hope you'll turn off underlining before visiting the work.

In "No Pink" I have kept scrolling to a minimum. The top banner scrolls only to the right. I'm trying to create a tactile page, so the viewer feels the text/image to find what's hot. I wanted a dialogue within the text, between or among the frames. With "push" or automatically refreshed pages, short pieces of text and image can be delivered at intervals. In frames, two or more pages on the screen can interact or have a dialogue. Frame sets can feature multiple texts, multiple worlds/an almost infinite combination of images and text. By their size, they can provide weight to a passage, an idea or character. A final attribute is that one frame can direct another.

Kisses to all as you begin your sojourn!

And, for Online Journalism, and Grand Prize over all: Accepting the Grand Prize an First Prize for A Gift of Hypertext is Steve Silberman

In the online business, one hears the phrase "just text" quite often, usually in a denigrating sense: it's just text, simple ASCII, no streaming visuals, spinning icons or music burbling. "Just text" -- how 1994!

I celebrate the fact that a few years of pinched bandwidth opened up a little window when text was the primary vehicle of communication in this overwhelming new medium. I have no doubt that in a couple of years, a revamped Net is going to offer every flavor of distraction. I also know that in every generation, there will be those who will discover -- between the pages of a book, on a screen, or in their own hand -- the counsel of a few words arriving at the right moment, the "snake-like beauty in the living changes of syntax" as poet Robert Duncan put it, the earned wisdoms mysteriously passed heart to heart when a writer does his or her job well.

For those who want to read more of my writing, my home page is at http://www.levity.com/digaland/index.html.

I should also say that without the flashing minds and earnest hearts I found in the Well, I may never have been able to support myself as a writer. My gratitude is double.