Tag Archives: writing contests

December 18, 2015 · 5:34 pm

Wonderful News!

Cool School Blue

My novel, Magical Miss Morgan, in manuscript form has made it to the final round in the Chanticleer Book Reviews’ novel-writing contest called the Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Novels 2015.   It is listed as one of 29 finalists that have been identified so far, and this year the competition judges are still reviewing manuscripts for possible inclusion in the field of finalists.  The judging has actually run past the announcement deadline.  So it is a large field to compete against for the actual prizes, but it is a huge honor to make it this far.

265469780

The Finalists Authors and Titles of Works that have made it to the Short-list of the Dante Rossetti 2015 Novel Writing Contest are as of Dec. 15, 2015. (Please check back often as we are still processing the Rossetti 2015 Finalists. We will add OFFICIAL FINALIST POSTING to this post when it is complete. Thank you for your understanding.)

  • Gail Selvig for O.W.L.S. and Other Creatures of the Night
  • Luke Evans for Hex
  • Jo Swanson for The Last Rodeo in Kingdom Come
  • Lis Anna-Langston for Tupelo Honey
  • KB Shaw for Neworld Series
  • Alix Nichols for What If It’s Love
  • Glen Alan Burke for Jesse
  • Ben Hutchins for Lackawanna
  • Jesse Atkin for  The Flying Man
  • Verity Croker for May Day Mine
  • Robert Joseph for Long Ago and Far Away
  • Aiden Riley for The Red
  • Pamela Beason for Race with Danger
  • Melissa A. Craven for  Emerge: The Awakening
  • Nikki McCormack for The Girl and the Clockwork Cat
  • Patrick Hodges for Joshua’s Island
  • Michael Burnam, MD for The Last Stop
  • Kathe Maguire for The Harriet Club
  • Suzanne de Montigny for The Shadow of the Unicorn II: The Deception
  • Laurisa White Reyes for Memorable
  • Mike Hartner for I, Mary: Book 3 in the Crofter Saga
  • Olivia Wildenstein for Ghostboy, Chameleon & the Duke of Graffiti
  • Suzanne de Montigny for The Shadow of the Unicorn II: The Deception
  • Stephanie DeLuca for Pilgrims 
  • Danielle Burnette for The Spanish Club
  • Cody Wagner for Camp NO Where – A Healing Home for Gay Kids
  • Michael Beyer for Magical Miss Morgan
  • Michael Sarrow for Mistress of Marrowglen

LIST TO CONTINUE — Thank you for your patience. We are working through the Dante Rossetti entries for 2015. 

This marks the second time one of my works has gotten this far in a writing contest.  In 2013 I was able to get my novel Snow Babies on an even shorter short list of finalists, though it did not win any of the available prizes.  But Snow Babies is now soon to be a real book published by PDMI LLC publishers.  I have hopes that before too much longer, Magical Miss Morgan will be too.

class Miss Mcover

5 Comments

Filed under announcement, humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,

August 5, 2015 · 1:46 pm

Mickey’s Blue Summer

The SuckerOkay, this is not going like I had hoped.  Medical bills are overwhelming.  Impacted molars are going to cost my family over three thousand dollars when we still can’t afford bills of bigger than 50.  And I got word today that I did not win in the Chanticleer Book Reviews novel-writing contest.  I was beaten out for the prize by Elisabeth Hamill’s book Song Magick.

I am bummed out.  It is not that I expected to win that contest, but Magical Miss Morgan is a better book than Snow Babies, and that one at least made the list of finalists.  I seem to be getting further away from the goal.  If I placed, or got a prize in that contest, I would at least get the attention of literary agents and big publishers.  Perhaps it is God’s wish that I remain an unknown novelist who makes no money at writing.  It is consistent with His divine sense of humor.  The angels get a good laugh whenever I fall on my figurative face for wishing too hard for money and success.  God wants people to be happy being poor.  Right?  That’s what Republican politicians in Texas keep saying.

But if I keep playing the same sweet-sad songs and singing in the lonely darkness… at least I can make a melody or two that lifts the souls of my fellow dwellers in the dark.

MaxP

But, wait a minute… something is not right here!  Why are the winners the same ones they told me about a couple of months ago?  Ms. Hamill’s book is also listed on this… 2014 list?  Did I jump the gun?  Look at this list for me; Dante Rossetti Awards

Am I wrong, or does that say these are the 2014 winners?  There’s the due date by which I sent in my novel for the NEXT COMPETITION in 2015!  That means I won’t actually hear about my novel until next summer!  Hang dang it!  Both bad news and good news in one fell swoop. So, I am not out of the running yet.  Perhaps there is time to do more and be more and write more after all!

Francois spotlight

6 Comments

Filed under humor, Paffooney, self pity

Tagged as , , , , , ,

March 5, 2015 · 3:59 pm

Snow Day Again… In March?

20150305_083532 20150305_083452 20150305_083505 20150305_083447

20150305_083349It is truly amazing how little snow it takes to totally paralyze a city like Dallas.  Chicago would be embarrassed to death at having to close school down on a sunshiny day with less than a foot of snow on the ground.  But Dallas likes to build major roadways up into the air so freezing air can hit the underside as well as the upper side of roads that, once shut down by a hideous three-car five-death accident on sheets of super-slippery ice, totally prohibits movement from one side of the metroplex to the other.

I have considerable pain from my arthritis, and I am shut down most of the time anyway.  But with the city closed around me, there is not much left to do but sit and write and make fun of southerners who can’t drive on snow because they don’t realize that speeds below seventy miles-per-hour do exist in the real world.  I have had time to further work on the final edit of my novel, The Bicycle-Wheel Genius.  I also had time to submit my novel Magical Miss Morgan to the Chanticleer Book Reviews’ YA novel-writing contest called the Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction.  265469780

I don’t have a head full of straw and really believe I am going to walk away with a top prize.  But I did enter this contest before with Snow Babies, and that book made it into the final round.  It will help my manuscript get published.  Who knows?  I may score something bigger than an Indie publisher this time around.  Maybe I can get an agent.  (Okay, there’s a little straw in there.  I will have to clean more carefully next time.)

But old, broken, bed-ridden me with nothing but time to lay around and fiddle with the computer am definitely making good use of my snow day.  I took pictures of the snow.  I walked the dog in it.  And I didn’t have to drive to any schools or school events.  Hot dang!  What a fine life.

Leave a comment

Filed under humor, NOVEL WRITING, photo paffoonies

Tagged as , , , , ,