Welcome to the RPLA Showcase
Each year at the Royal Palm Literary Award 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. Our goal is to showcase the best of the best at the 2015 Royal Palm Literary Awards and provide First Place winners with a well-deserved spotlight. Not only are we recognizing extraordinary talent, but we’re giving readers an opportunity to sample excerpts from the winning stories.
2015 Published Thriller/Suspense
Lily of Peru by David C. Edmonds
David C. Edmonds won First Place in the Published Thriller/Suspense category. In Lily of Peru, a USF professor struggles to get the woman he loves out of Peru during the dark days of the Shining Path insurrection.
Click the link to read a sample:
Q & A with David C. Edmonds
Q: Where do you get your story ideas?
A: My ideas come from my background as a former Marine, Peace Corps Volunteer, university professor, and federal government official with long experience in troubled countries in Latin America. For my last two thrillers, I developed plots and superimposed them over my experiences in Peru and Nicaragua, much embellished, of course.
Q: Anything in particular about your award-winning RPLA entry that you’d like to share?
A: Lily of Peru is the story (fiction) of a USF professor’s search for his lost love in war-torn Peru. Almost all the incidents/scenes actually occurred, though not in conjunction with the plot and not in the same order or location as in the book. The plot was inspired by my brief involvement in the search for a missing American woman who had thrown in with a violent insurgent movement in Peru. I did not know the woman and have never met her.
Q: Who do you credit with inspiring your writing?
A: My grandmother, who was part Creek Indian. Her father was a Confederate soldier who was wounded in the Battle of Lookout Mountain, captured, and spend the rest of the war in a Union prison camp. She encouraged me to write about his experiences for a high school project. It received so many positive comments that I kept writing. Also, my favorite childhood author was Mark Twain. I read all his works.
Q: Any tips for new writers?
A: More than I have space for here. I’ve been in writers’ group all my adult life and am amazed at how many new writers plunge into a novel or memoir without any notion of POV or how to structure a plot. Hence my suggestion–before you begin, make an effort to learn the basics. Take advantage of writing classes and seminars and/or read how-do books. There are many of these on the market. Then read books in the areas that interest you and see how the writing conforms to what you’ve learned in seminars and how-to books. In short, read, read, read, both for enjoyment and for learning.
