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2016 RPLA UNPUBLISHED BOOK OF THE YEAR:
Cleaning House by Jennifer Boddicker
Not only did Jennifer win First Place in the Unpublished Mainstream/Literary category, but she brought home RPLA’s top prize for unpublished manuscripts.
In Cleaning House, a fugitive learns he has a grown daughter. Nervous to meet, he becomes her handyman instead, and
seduces her housekeeper. When the truth comes out, he must fight for redemption.
Click the link to read a sample:
Q & A with Author Jennifer Boddicker
Q: Where do you get your story ideas?
A: I’m inspired by people I know, their personalities and life events, as well as news stories I find compelling. I often try to combine character traits of people I know with stories I’ve seen in the news.
Q: Anything in particular about your award-winning RPLA entry that you’d like to share?
A: At its core, my novel is about a reclusive inventor discovering the family he never knew about, and bumbling his way into their lives––despite seemingly insurmountable odds. I strived to create very real characters, by turns, both humorous and heartbreaking.
Q: Who do you credit with inspiring your writing?
A: My fifth grade teacher Mrs. Powell. She had me write a story every night, gave me a typewriter, and told me I’d be a writer when I grew up. It’s been a long and twisting path, but here I am, a grown up writer. Thank you Mrs. Powell!
Q: Any tips for new writers?
A: Don’t be too hard on yourself. Remember it all stinks at first, for everyone. Only in revision does your writing begin to shine. And learn, learn, learn! Books about writing, writing classes, writing groups: take advantage of these resources to hone your skills.
Thank you for sharing, Jennifer, and congratulations! For more about Jennifer Boddicker, visit her website: www.facebook.com/authorJenniferBoddicker/
A message about supporting literacy in Florida:
If every member of FWA went to Smile.Amazon.com, chose Florida Writers Foundation, Inc. as their charity and, instead of logging into Amazon.com, logged into Smile.Amazon.com, FWF would receive 0.5% of the purchase funds. Every time.
We could significantly fund the literacy efforts of our organization. No money out of your pockets…just some invested time to set this up.
How easy for us to make a difference. To see all of our work, please read the pages of our website www.floridawritersfoundation.com. You’ll be proud.
Tom Swartz, President, FWF
