Most Memorable May 2011: Vaseline

I certainly never forgot the scene Nathan Evans painted in his essay, Vaseline.

This past winter, about the time I first read the submission, I couldn’t even lubricate my lips with the petroleum-jelly-like goo that squeezed out of my yellow Carmex tube without giggling as I imagined poor Eleanor waking up with that odd sensation between her cheeks (Yes. Those cheeks.) and the man she had—until this point—thought a suitable catch hovering over her. If you missed this story, you must read it right now.

I was delighted when other Hippocampus readers agreed Vaseline was a good fit for our debut issue. I felt more warm and fuzzies when the story received such a great response after our May 1, 2011, launch. It certainly helps that Mr. Evans has a healthy following on Twitter and his blog.

A screen shot of Hippo's Google Analytics account on May 31, the top referrers cropped out.

Vaseline wins the “Most Memorable” designation for May 2011. The story received many comments, likes, tweets, shares and retweets. What’s more, is that it received the most unique page views in May (aside from the homepage and our submission guidelines) and his blog referred the most traffic to the website outside of direct traffic, search engines, Twitter and Facebook. The story on its own was memorable and is the certainly the kind that will attract lots of interesting comments; but it was really Nathan’s promotion of his story that earned him this honor.

Congratulations to Mr. London Street, as his friends call him (at least the ones on Twitter). Nathan Evans wins a $25 gift card to Amazon. (OK – Amazon.co.uk since our winner is from across the pond; we’ll figured out the exchange rate.) And, his story gets a slimy—I mean shiny—new badge to wear.

Runner up: Rabbit Hole by Suzanne Farrell Smith

This hypnotic story started a wonderful back and forth between reader and writer, just the kind of engagement I was hoping to build with Hippocampus Magazine. Kudos to you, Suzanne, for sharing this piece of your life with us; I know it wasn’t easy. You must have been so touched by some of the comments. Read Rabbit Hole now.