Contest Results

– Grand Prize Winner: Paula Pedene and Doug Williams– A Sacred Duty PAULA L. PEDENE, APR, Fellow PRSA holds the Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) highest honors including the PR Pro of the Year Award, the Western District Platinum Service Award and three Silver Anvil Awards for Institutional Programs, Reputation Management, and Community Outreach. Paula Pedene was one of the first Whistleblowers at the Phoenix VA. In 2010, she collaborated with Dr. Sam Foote in exposing funds mismanagement and a hostile work environment. Their allegations were sustained by the Office of the Inspector General. When new leaders arrived, they were suspicious of her and she became mired in conflict. They removed her from her role as a VA Public Affairs Officer, a role where she had performed admirably for 23 years and banished her to the basement library where she checked books in and out, put the daily papers…

– Grand Prize Winner: M Dressler – The Last to See Me M Dressler is the nom de plume of novelist, essayist, and professor Mylene Dressler. Following a successful career as a professional ballet dancer, she earned her PhD at Rice University, where she wrote and finished her first novel, The Medusa Tree, about a young dancer struggling against war and the myths of beauty and power entangling her family. Praised for this debut work as “a natural born storyteller” (Library Journal), she followed it with her “splendid” (The New York Times) second novel, The Deadwood Beetle, the story of an aging entomologist haunted by his harrowing, war-time past. Her stories often explore characters battling their ghosts, including her comic third novel, The Floodmakers (“a hilariously poisonous, devilish little tale”—Booklist), about a playwright who must decide whether to live or die among his obsessive family. In her most recent book,…

– Grand Prize Winner: Greg Edwards & Andy Sandberg – Application Pending GREG EDWARDS wrote the scripts for Application Pending (Off-Broadway, Drama Desk nomination) and Craving for Travel (Off-Broadway), both co-authored with Andy Sandberg, lyrics for Neurosis: A New Musical (Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, SALT Award for Best New Musical), and book and lyrics for Evelyn Shaffer and the Chance of a Lifetime (City Theatre, Samuel French OOB Festival winner, Take a Ten Musicals), Taking the Plunge (Samuel French OOB Festival, NYMF), and The Almost In-Laws (Take a Ten Musicals). He has collaborated with Marvin Hamlisch (White House Governors’ Dinner, Mr. Hamlisch’s holiday tour) and Arthur Laurents (Love Affair). Greg’s essays are published in Avidly (Los Angeles Review of Books) and McSweeney’s, and his game Jessica Plunkenstein and the Dusseldorf Conspiracy (NYT “Best Adventure Game of the Year”) was published by PC Gamer UK. Honors and approximations thereof include the BMI Harrington Award, the Fred Ebb Award (two-time finalist), and a Nickelodeon Writing Fellowship (top-12 semifinalist)….

– Grand Prize Winner: Zach Fortier – I Am Raymond Washington Zach Fortier was a police officer for over 30 years, specializing in K-9, SWAT, gang, domestic violence, and sex crimes as an investigator. He has written five books about police work. Curbchek, the first book, is a case-by-case account of the streets, as he worked them from the start of his 30 career. Streetcreds details the time Zach spent in a gang task force and the cases that occurred. The third book is by far the most gritty: Curbchek-Reload, where Zach is damaged–and dangerously so, suffering from PTSD and the day-to-day violence of working the street. Hero To Zero is Zach’s fourth book and recalls cops he worked with that were incredibly talented but ended up going down in flames–some ended up in jail, prison, and one on the FBI’s ten most wanted list. Released in 2014, Landed On Black covers the…

– Grand Prize Winner: Milo Behr –  Beowulf: A Bloody Calculus (sci-fi/thriller) Milo Behr grew up in New York, Central America, Europe and the Middle East. His short fiction has appeared in anthologies alongside David Farland, Kevin J. Anderson, Eugie Foster, and others. Academically, he’s published through IEEE, ICSTC and others, and spoken at SIGGRAPH, BIA/Kelsey’s ILM, VFX and elsewhere. Milo has taught, and guest-lectures on, film production and information technology on the university level, and has twice been commended by the US Army for outstanding research. He invented DigiClay Animation (his animation shop was the first to computer-animate Gumby), Cryptocast streaming media encryption, and a variety of other technologies. He lives among the Rocky Mountains with his wife and three children. A sequel to his Book Pipeline winning novel will be released in 2015. Read Beowulf: A Bloody Calculus. From Book Pipeline: “Such a rich, immersive experience. The story digs in its feet from the…