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 2016 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.
2016 Published Blended Genre & Published Women’s Fiction
The Girl in the Glyphs by David C. Edmonds
David C. Edmonds won First Place in both the Published Blended Genre category and the Published Women’s Fiction category. In The Girl in the Glyphs, a Smithsonian specialist in ancient writing struggles with her love interests while trying to decipher a wall of mysterious “glyphs” in Nicaragua and outwit a murderous gang of tomb looters.
Click the link to read a sample:
Excerpt from The Girl in the Glyphs
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Q & A with David C. Edmonds
Q: Where do you get your story ideas?
A: Most of my stories are based on real life experiences. The Girl in the Glyphs was inspired by my search with former Sandinista soldiers for a Mayan “glyph” cave in Nicaragua in the early 1990s. They’d hidden there during the Sandinista-Contra war and had only a vague notion of the location. I helped them find it by using military maps from the US Embassy. My wife and co-author Maria suggested we write a fictionalized version with a female protagonist.
Q: Anything in particular about your award-winning RPLA entry that you’d like to share?
A: The Florida Writers Association provides a wonderful platform for writers to get feedback and exposure.
Q: Who do you credit with inspiring your writing?
A: My old grandmother, Edie Cleora Edmonds Burkhalter. When I was a child she regaled me with stories about our family history and our ancestors’ involvement in Indian uprisings, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and bootlegging. She introduced me to the works of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many other famous writers.
Q: Any tips for new writers?
A: Analyze the books and movies you read/watch. Why did I like (or not like) the protagonist? What is is the issue driving the story? What does the main character want and what is stopping him/her from getting it? What are the stakes? Subplots? Supporting characters? Learn from these books and join a writers group. Read how-to books and compare their instructions with your own analysis of books you enjoy.
Thank you for sharing, David, and congratulations! Visit his website: www.dedmonds.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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