Congratulations to Award Winner!

Three cheers for Shaku Rajagopal! Her new book, Song of the Mountains is the Bronze Award Winner for best Memoir in the 2015 Colorado Independent Book Publishers contest!

Learn more about Shaku's excellent book and her brave journey here: http://shakuraj.com/

Thanks to Writers's Relief for allowing me to share this with you:

With the distractions and excitement of summer's waning days,  Writer’s Relief invites you to free your mind! Read what they have to say about the process of freewriting. It is a great way to focus on your writing even when you don't know where to start, or don't have much time.


This article has been reprinted with the permission of Writer’s Relief, an author’s submission service that has been helping creative writers make submissions since 1994. Their work is highly recommended in the writing community, and there are TONS of freebies, publishing leads, and writers resources on their website. Check it out!

An unusual literary award outcome

AWP Award Series Creative Nonfiction Prize

"Even with our best efforts, our work is not always deemed successful. This year, our judge for Creative Nonfiction, Lia Purpura, did not select a winner for the competition. Because we know such a decision is unpopular, I am writing to explain why this is an outcome that AWP allows in the adjudication of our awards.

"The Award Series guidelines have stated—ever since the inception of the Series in 1975—that the judge makes the final decision and no award is given if the judge finds no manuscript that merits the award. Every entrant agrees to this and other terms before submitting works into the competition via Submittable.

"The outcome of no winner has occurred several times in the 40-year history of the series." 

A reminder that even our best work may not be seen as such by others. So goes the world of the working writer.