Bourdain to Personally Pay $10K to "Exploited" Contest Winner

Anthony Bourdain was not happy when I ran the post "Anthony Bourdain Will Publish But Not Pay You" about his contest to publish a crowd-sourced 500-word essay in the paperback edition of Medium Raw and not pay the winner for their words. The reward of having a few paragraphs published in the book should be enough! (The post ended up being syndicated to Gawker, with a different headline "Anthony Bourdain Has No Reservations About Not Paying Authors for Their Work.")

Last night he reached out to let us know that he will personally "pony up ten grand for the exploited author/winner" on the condition that "Eater/Raphael will present it."

Which is an admirable thing to do and an insanely generous amount of money — an unheard of $20/word! — and I'd gladly participate in having authors get paid. Clearly Mr. Bourdain recognizes the value of the printed word. Backlash, nullified. Hero status, restored.

So! With the prize money in mind, I encourage and urge you to write 500 words explaining "What does it mean to cook food well?" because a $10,000 check from Anthony Bourdain could very well be yours.

· In it, to Win it! [Travel Channel]
· Bourdain Medium Raw [Official site]
· All Anthony Bourdain Coverage on Eater [-E-]