October 2012 Prize Sponsors

A big thank you to our Prize Sponsors! Please take a moment to learn more about this month’s wonderfully generous sponsors.

Dialogue Dynamics by Tristi Pinkston

Good dialogue is crucial to a good novel.

Learn how to write dialogue that is realistic without being sappy and how to punctuate it, present it, and polish it to show your characters to their best advantage.

Dialogue Dynamics is volume one of The Write It Right Series.

 

With her crisp writing style and attention to detail, Tristi Pinkston pulls her readers into the pages of history and helps them feel the emotions that fueled the events of that time. She has been hailed as one of the most talented historical fiction writers currently on the market.

Tristi is the Silver Quill Award-winning author of Secret Sisters, as well as thirteen other novels and self-help books. She has also penned over two thousand articles for the Internet. Her work as a freelance editor allows her to do something she loves—mentor writers on their journey to publication. She is the mother of four amazing children and the wife of one incredible husband, and loves spending her free time trying recipes no one will eat, scrapbooking, and taking really, really long naps.

In addition to being a prolific author, Tristi also provides a variety of author services, including editing and online writing instruction. You can visit her at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com or her website at www.tristipinkston.com.

 

Dispirited by Luisa M. Perkins

Cathy sees things that are invisible to everyone else. Her new stepbrother’s bizarre behavior. A ghostly little boy. An abandoned house in the woods.

But she doesn’t see how they’re all connected. And what she doesn’t see might just kill her.

 

Luisa M. Perkins writes speculative fiction, specifically contemporary dark-ish fantasy. She is the author of Dispirited, published by Zarahemla Books in March 2012, and co-author of the novel The Book of Jer3miah, forthcoming from Shadow Mountain in August 2012. Past publications include the cookbook Comfortably Yum and the LDS YA novel Shannon’s Mirror. She has had numerous short stories and essays published in print and online. She has been a member of the Whitney Awards Committee for the past two years.

Luisa has been married for 22 years to Patrick, an absolute prince of a man. They live with their six lovely children and an insane cat in a tiny town on the east bank of the Hudson River. Her passions include reading, gardening, knitting, cooking, eating, and musicking.

 

Lighting Candles in the Snow by Karen Jones Gowen

Newly divorced Karoline London needs to heal and find her normal again, as older sister Suzie keeps reminding her. But what does Suzie know about divorce? She has the perfect husband and seven gorgeous children, while Karoline had six years married to a man tormented by addictions.

When Karoline meets handsome Zac Kline, things just might be looking up. Until she learns about a tragic event in ex-husband Jeremy s childhood that explains old complications, while creating new ones complications that threaten to further obstruct Karoline s difficult path back to herself.

Lighting Candles in the Snow is a novel of hope and redemption, about new beginnings and fresh starts. It is about the weak finding courage, and how shared grief in times of loss can create unbreakable bonds within families.

Karen Gowen: Born and raised in central Illinois, the daughter of a second-generation Methodist minister, I now live in South Jordan, Utah with my husband and three of our ten children. We have a back yard overgrown with fruit trees, vegetable garden and wildflowers, as well as a pond full of koi. I love to read, knit and watch Woody Allen movies. I graduated from BYU with a degree in English and American Literature. I’ve been writing for most of my life, published a few newspaper articles and sold a few stories to the Friend. The past few years I have finally been able to devote more time to writing.

 

Shadowed by Stephanie Black

Gifted musician Catherine Clayton was born into a life of wealth and privilege. Following the death of her father, she makes a bold decision to use the family money to establish a music school and offer free lessons to the underprivileged in Riley, New York.

Hit hard by the economic downturn, Riley personifies economic hardship. But the damage runs much deeper than Catherine first realizes. Two years ago, Riley was rocked by weeks of vandalism followed by the brutal murder of beautiful elementary school secretary Olivia Perry. Though the murder remains unsolved, Catherine receives ominous warnings that one of these men, Adam Becket, is responsible for one girl’s death. Unimpressed by the lack of evidence against him, Catherine is drawn to the shy but endearing Adam. Could he really have been involved in Olivia’s murder?

Just as Catherine is settling in and getting to know Adam, a vandal strikes again, and it’s eerily reminiscent of the events surrounding Olivia’s murder. The death threats splashed on the walls prove that killer is back—and this time, it’s Catherine who wonders if she’s come to the wrong place at the wrong time.

Stephanie Black: I’ve enjoyed making up stories since I was a child, when my sisters and I would play long, strange Barbie games or write and direct plays for ourselves and younger siblings. I took a creative writing class in high school, but my stories stunk, since I hadn’t yet figured out that a story needs a plot. But I finally got a fun idea, and an encouraging comment from the teacher got me rolling.

After a few years of writing random scenes, I decided to try writing a novel start to finish, but that led to a failed unfinished manuscript and the realization that there was a lot more to writing fiction than I’d ever understood. I began reading books about fiction technique and started over with my novel project.

Stephanie’s contemporary suspense novels have won the Whitney Award for Best Mystery/Suspense four years in a row.

 

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