It’s Spring! This is the time of year that the 2015 nominees for the RITA ® and Golden Heart ® contests are announced. Having been a 2013 Golden Heart nominee, I know how exciting it is to get that early morning call. Congratulations to all of the 2015 nominees. Yay! This is the first year I have the privilege of judging the Rita contest. I was given seven books to judge. All of them were not in my genre, so it was a blast to read some books I never would’ve read otherwise. Six out of the seven were amazing books. One book, however, could have benefited from more feedback before it was published. Which leads me to RWA-sponsored writing contests. First off, let me say everyone’s experience is different. For me, these contests were invaluable as a method to learn the craft of writing. I decided to write a book late in life and had no previous experience writing fiction, so a large quantity of feedback seemed an efficient way to learn. There are many advantages of conte...
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