COMIC BOOKS & GRAPHIC NOVELS
Winner
Memory Maker by Anna Abrashina
Anna has gotten to know the “screenplays are like blueprints” comparison quite literally while working as an architect by day and sticking to her passion of writing by night. Using the skills gained from a decade of building in our own world, she crafts fantasy/sci-fi realms and alternate realities to serve as metaphors for real-world matters.
After placing in numerous competitions over the years, Anna got a chance to work with an independent studio to develop their idea into a series, the pilot of which is currently in development.
Always attracted to different forms of storytelling, she has recently expanded into and fell in love with comic book writing, adapting several of her screenplays into the visual medium.
Runner-up
Violet Bloom: Alien Spy by Danielle Cerin
Danielle lives in Sydney, Australia. Her goal is to be renowned for writing outlandish and wacky graphic novels, junior fiction, and middle grade series that kids find fun and addictive to read.
Over the last three years, her manuscripts have been listed in a number of competitions, including The Children’s Book Council of Australia: Aspiring Writer’s Competition, the Children’s and Young Adult Competition (CYA Australia), and Write-Mentor Children’s Picture Book and Novel Competition (UK).
She has also had short stories published in children’s magazines, and in the middle grade fantasy anthology ‘Ourania’s Orrery of Imagination’ by WildInk Publishing.
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GENERAL FICTION
Winner
The Cats of No Man’s Land by Vin Dova
Born into an international family of variety performers, Vin Dova grew up on the colorful streets of “Sin City” Las Vegas, scheming to make it big as a writer and filmmaker—until the terrorist attacks of September 11th sent his life in a very different direction.
Despite a contentious attitude towards authority, and the handicap of having a theatre degree, he convinced the US Navy to send him to flight school. After deploying and flying around the world for a dozen years, he traded the cockpit for a desk at the Pentagon—but never stopped collecting stories and writing. Since retiring from government service, Dova has kept himself busy as a start-up tech executive and small business owner.
He and his wife of twenty-plus years share their crowded, Northern Virginia home with two teenage boys, too many cars, and four cats that would be instantly familiar to readers of The Cats of No Man’s Land.
Runner-up
The Trouble with Mary by Sharon Spaulding
Sharon is a feminist historian, researcher, and writer who specializes in the life and times of Mary Ware Dennett (1872-1947), one of the most pivotal leaders of the early women’s rights movement in the U.S. In 2020, Dennett was included by Time Magazine as one of the nine most important women in American history that everyone should know. She curates the Dennett family archive and received a grant from Radcliffe College’s Schlesinger Library to support her work.
Her essays about Dennett have appeared in Smithsonian (digital), Ms., and New Hampshire magazines. She also publishes a monthly newsletter, Women Make History: Stories We Should Have Learned in School, that highlights the forgotten stories of remarkable women. She speaks to women’s, business, and civic groups about these historical mentors.
Sharon lives outside of Salt Lake City with her husband and her black lab, Hank.
LITERARY
Winner
Five Wednesdays by Kincaid Jones
With an M.A. from Stanford, Kincaid came to Hollywood as Lawrence Kasdan’s AFI Writing/Directing Intern and now works as a writer/producer in movie and TV advertising, specializing in female markets.
Over the years, she has contributed to hundreds of movie and TV campaigns, produced several HBO documentaries, and won an Emmy and several Clios.
Kincaid has also written a TV Pilot, Bootown, a screenplay, Fuzzy & June, and several produced musicals. Most recently, she completed her debut novel, Five Wednesdays, to the relief of her friends, family, and five millennial kids, who look forward to talking about something else at Thanksgiving.
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Runner-up
Newman’s Choice by Mark Connelly
Mark Connelly’s fiction has appeared in Peregrine Journal, Möbius Blvd, Indiana Review, Bristol Noir, The Berlin Review, Third Wednesday, Altered Reality, Cream City Review, Cerasus Magazine, and 34th Parallel.
He received an Editor’s Choice Award in Carve Magazine’s Raymond Carver Short Story Contest in 2014; in 2015 he received Third Place in Red Savina Review’s Albert Camus Prize for Short Fiction. In 2005, Texas Review Press published his novella Fifteen Minutes, which received the Clay Reynolds Prize.
NONFICTION
Winner
Mothers in Arms by Susan Berardi
Susan Berardi wrote Mothers in Arms based on her 4,000-word feature article, “Police killed their sons…,” published in The Guardian in Aug. 2021 and nominated for the 2022 International Online Journalism Awards. She’s had an editorial in The New York Times, and her essays and short stories have been published in The Carolina Quarterly, The Galway Review in Ireland, Broad River Review, Watershed Review, and Jewish Light Magazine.
She was a visiting lecturer for William Jewell College, Missouri, to discuss the book and teach on “The Discourse of Self-Defense.” She has also guest-lectured at the University of Illinois. In 2019, Susan gave the commencement address for the University of Illinois Dept. of Communication.
She has an MFA in Nonfiction and Fiction from Pacific University in Portland, Oregon, and an MA from the University of Illinois.
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The Uncensored History of Girls Gone Wild by Courtney Kocak
Runner-up
Courtney Kocak is a writer and podcaster based in Los Angeles. She wrote for Amazon’s Emmy-winning animated series Danger & Eggs and Netflix’s Know It All. Her bylines include The New York Times, Business Insider, and a viral essay for Cosmopolitan.
She’s the host of the Private Parts Unknown podcast, and she’s currently working on a coming-of-age memoir.
MYSTERY / THRILLER
Winner
All the Truth I Could Not See by Sarah Rossmann
Sarah Rossmann is a writer for a TV crime series in Germany. She grew up with film early on, with an independent movie theater as the family business. Sarah completed professional courses in Film and TV Producing, including screenwriting, at the New York Film Academy and Marketing Entertainment at UCLA Extension. She also holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University and a Master of Anthropology with Minors in Gender Studies and Sociology from Freie Universität Berlin.
Sarah combines her passion for social justice and women’s rights with creative storytelling to dismantle stereotypes in media and entertainment. Her female-driven stories tend to grapple with violence against women and distrust in the justice system. Sarah’s independent screenplays have won multiple awards and nominations, including Best Feature Screenplay from the Los Angeles Film Awards for Running Through Revolution. She is a member of the Screenwriters Guild of Germany.
All The Truth I Could Not See, adapted from her screenplay Murder in the Big Easy, is Sarah’s unpublished debut novel.
Runner-up
Death in Miniature by Pamela Ruth Meyer
Pamela Ruth Meyer writes historical mysteries interwoven with love stories. As a high school forensic science teacher, she discovered inventive ways to solve crimes, which inspired her to write adventurous tales about a crime-fighting duo like no other. Pamela is a member of Mystery Writers of America (MWA), Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Romance Writers of America (RWA), and the Historical Novel Society.
Her debut manuscript, Death in Miniature, won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Unpublished Romantic Suspense Award, is a finalist for the 2024 RWA Golden Heart Award in the Love Across Genres category, and was a 2022 Page Turner Award Finalist.
Pamela is represented by Terrie Wolf at AKA Literary Management.
MIDDLE GRADE
Winner
After the End by Bluebelle Wednesday Carroll
Bluebelle Wednesday Carroll currently recommends almost anything written by Dianna Wynne Jones, Maurice Sendak, Lemony Snicket, or Zilpha Keatley Snyder. She grew up on a boat until it sunk, fell in love with reading when she discovered that an upsetting enough book could win you a day off from school, and now studies English and Creative Writing at Yale University.
When not writing, Bluebelle collects the quotes of friends and interesting strangers, works as a student EMT, and spends time with her very large family. Her horde of younger cousins and god-siblings (plus one brother) are her favourite sounding boards.
Bluebelle’s current works-in-progress include books about a rental parent company, a community of libertarian vampires, and the colour blue.
Runner-up
Beware of Monsters by JL Jamie
Coming Soon!
PICTURE BOOKS
Winner
Grandma and Me…Just Where We Should Be by Kate Jerome
Kate Jerome is an award-winning author and veteran publishing executive with a talent for blending storytelling and education. She has written dozens of fiction and nonfiction books for kids including Who Was Amelia Earhart? from the New York Times best-selling Who Was series. Passionate about sparking curiosity in kids, she has brought the wonders of science to life through many charming children’s books series created in partnership with National Geographic, OceanX, and other leading science organizations.
Beyond books, Kate co-founded Little Bridges, an award-winning company dedicated to enhancing literacy and fostering intergenerational connections through purposeful play. Her commitment to building meaningful bonds between generations drives many of her most innovative and impactful creations.
Kate serves as a Director Emeritus at the South Carolina Aquarium and as an advisor for the national Reading Partners program. She further contributes her expertise as a New Map of Life Ambassador for Stanford’s Center on Longevity and as a Distinguished Mentor in the Leadership and Society Initiative at the University of Chicago.
Runner-up
The Lonely Fox by Neena Phan
Neena Phan got her start in storytelling, oddly enough, through fashion school at Parsons The New School for Design where she learned about concept creation, character design, mood-boarding and story-boarding: all the elements a storyteller needs. It wasn’t apparent to her that she was a “real” storyteller until her last semester of senior year when she took a children’s book illustration class…and her entire world changed. She realized she’d stopped herself from becoming a writer at a young age because it was instilled in her that “writing doesn’t make money”. So to appease her parent’s wishes she tried to make it in engineering and fashion design (crazy, right?) … only to crash and burn–miserably; she was able to break through that illusion and started calling herself a real writer. She hasn’t looked back since.
Being a (highly sensitive) half-Vietnamese, half-Cambodian, Asian-American writer, she naturally loves to write for those who don’t feel like they belong anywhere, or feel that they’re not enough of one thing. After recovering from her first psychosis attack in 2015 and struggling with mental health her entire life, she feels a deep-seated responsibility to write from the perspectives of neurodiverse characters, like herself.
Her crazy imagination lends itself to her work as she gravitates towards writing fantasy and magical realism stories mixed with heart and humor. Her goal as a storyteller is to provide a mirror for those who haven’t yet found their “home” in life, to show them it’s possible to feel like you belong somewhere, you just have to find it.
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ROMANCE
Winner
Me, You, and a Latke or Two by Rachel Pologe
Rachel Pologe has spent her career in television writers’ rooms. She’s helped break over 100 episodes of TV and has written two of her own, for Apple’s “Dear Edward” and Epix’s “Condor.”
It is important to her to tell stories that highlight Jewish joy, a component of her identity that means a lot to her. Rachel graduated from Northwestern University with a certificate in Creative Writing for the Media.
Originally from Baltimore, she now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
Runner-up
Hits Different by Kelly Aruanno
Kelly currently lives in Palmyra, New Jersey, working as a full-time paralegal and part-time Barnes & Noble bookseller. Having learned how to write from a third-grade teacher who loved weekly writing prompts and wielding a red pen, she has been writing ever since and reads voraciously to supplement her love for fictional worlds. (Just ask her Goodreads account.)
When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her spending her downtime trying to gain victory crowns in Fortnite. Writing accomplishments include being a 2022 quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft TV Pilot Script Competition.
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SCI-FI / FANTASY
Winner
City of Iron and Ivy by Thomas Kent West
Thomas Kent West is an American writer of speculative fiction based in Minnesota. His writing has won the Rue Morgue Magazine “Artifacts of Horror” Contest, received the Black Hole Comics Short Fiction Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Uncharted Magazine Novel Excerpt Prize, judged by New York Times bestseller Sequoia Nagamatsu.
His short fiction is featured in several publications, including Maudlin House, Flash Fiction Magazine, Vanishing Point Magazine, and The Spotlong Review; he is also a regular contributor to The Other Stories short fiction podcast.
Thomas is represented by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich, and Bourret LLC. His debut fantasy novel is forthcoming.
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Runner-up
When the Sea Burns Red by Catherine Cheng
Catherine Cheng is a Chinese-American writer based in New York City. She writes fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction novels inspired by folklore and her cultural heritage. A romantic at heart, her work features grand (sometimes painful) love stories and explores the age-old question of whether love is enough, regardless of genre.
When the Sea Burns Red is an homage to The Investiture of the Gods (封神演义), a 16th-century Chinese classic that has captivated her since childhood.
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YA
Winner
When Pigs Fly by Lyn Fairchild Hawks
Lyn Fairchild Hawks is the author of contemporary young adult novels, literary fiction, and books for educators.
A former high school English teacher, Lyn is a graduate of Stanford University and the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Her YA novel @nervesofsteel won first place in the 2023 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards, and her unpublished novel When Pigs Fly was a recipient of the Norma Fox Mazer award at VCFA and was also a Killer Nashville Claymore Award Top Pick.
She lives in Chapel Hill with her partner, Americana musician Greg Hawks, and keeps time on her keyboard to the tune of banjos, guitars, and mandolins.
Runner-up
Changed by Stephanie Simpson McLellan
Stephanie Simpson McLellan is the award-winning author of six picture books and a middle-grade novel.
Her newest book, Two Tales of Twenty-Six (Nov 15/24) is a picture book/first reader hybrid.
She reviewed children’s books for twelve years for Today’s Parent magazine and has worked in children’s television. She lives in Newmarket, Ontario.
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