Welcome to the RPLA Showcase
2016 Published Romance
Winter Harvest by Anne Nichols Reynolds
In Winter Harvest, Dana Winter leaves behind tragedy and loss to heal on her aunt’s cattle ranch in Colorado. This is one woman’s journey to acceptance, wholeness, and new love.
At the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards Banquet, author Anne Nichols Reynolds won First Place in the Published Romance category. Each year at the RPLA Banquet, authors experience the joy of earning accolades for all the hard work that is often done in the privacy of the home with little to no recognition. We’re showcasing the best of the best with our First Place winners spotlight. Not only does RPLA recognize extraordinary talent, but we’re giving readers an opportunity to sample excerpts from the winning stories.
Click the link to read a sample:
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Q & A with Anne Nichols Reynolds
Q: Where do you get your story ideas?
A: Divine inspiration gave me the stories. Norman Vincent Peale’s book, Power of Positive Thinking, gave me optimism. When I stepped out of my comfort zone, incredible adventures happened. A lifelong love of reading, travel, the joys of discovery, and life experiences with my husband, family, and friends inspired me to write. The stories came to me from beginning to end without suffering writer’s block. PTL.
Q: Anything in particular about your award-winning RPLA entry that you’d like to share?
A: Winter Harvest, my first novel, was a finalist but not a winner in the 2014 Contemporary Women’s Fiction genre. The novel won in the 2016 Romance genre, proving choice of the right genre is important. Winter Harvest follows Dana Winter, a popular, best-selling author, who has been battered by tragedy, scandal, and a failed marriage. Fleeing her dysfunctional family and poor choices to her aunt’s cattle ranch in Colorado, Dana overcomes the consequences of her past, finds new love, and learns the value of perseverance, forgiveness, and redemption. My characters are too flawed for the Christian market and not flawed enough for the secular market.
Q: Who do you credit with inspiring your writing?
A: My father instilled in me a love of reading and history. My husband has encouraged me to follow my dreams. A patient Lord gave me wisdom. An author relies on resources observed, written, and oral. Life experiences give the characters rich and believable backgrounds. If the reader becomes a participant in the lives I create, enjoys their stories, and learns something new, satisfaction is this author’s reward.
Q: Any tips for new writers?
A: I’m a retired English teacher, and I found writing a novel is more than story, grammar, and punctuation. Showing, not telling, using a rich vocabulary, and checking coherence is vitally important. I wrote cover story interviews as a staff writer for a local magazine, and I was informed going from non-fiction to fiction would be difficult. Though creative writing is my first love, I took a creative writing course at the community college. The professor invited me to join her critique group, the Avon Park Wordsmiths, a chapter of FWA, truly “writers helping writers.” Fellow writers checked my work for flow, grammar, tense, relevance, and vocabulary. They kept me accountable and encouraged me to keep writing. This opportunity promoted confidence and honed skills a good writer needs. Writing is easier with knowledge and practice. If you don’t have a critique group nearby, start one. We started another one locally for working people and those with families from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. once a week. Bobbie Christmas has an excellent desk reference, Purge Your Prose of Problems, which I use a lot.
Thank you for sharing, Anne, and congratulations! Visit her website: annenicholsreynolds.com
*When you purchase this book from the Amazon Smile link provided, you are promoting literacy throughout Florida. You pay no extra cost for the book. The Amazon Smile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to Florida Writers Foundation.
For more details about FWF, visit www.floridawritersfoundation.com
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