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 Mystery
Evangeline’s Miracle by Lisa Buie-Collard
Lisa Buie-Collard won First Place in the Published Mystery category. In Evangeline’s Miracle, Evangeline didn’t know she was waiting for a miracle, until one found her.
Click the link to read a sample:
Excerpt from Evangeline’s Miracle
Q & A with Lisa Buie-Collard
Q: Where do you get your story ideas?
A: Evangeline’s Miracle came from different sources. The mother/daughter issues came from my mother’s family. The Polish part came from research I was doing at the time. The British Home Children came from research I was doing for a different story. My second book started cooking in my brain when I read an article about CCTV cameras in the United Kingdom and how many there were, and grew from there. I find my story ideas everywhere!
Q: Anything in particular about your award-winning RPLA entry that you’d like to share?
A: EM was the first novel I wrote from my heart, not an historical fiction novel which gave me a template (historical). I loved my characters from the start and still do. To win this award gave me a new feeling of accomplishment I had not anticipated.
Q: Who do you credit with inspiring your writing?
A: My father first, and then too many authors I read growing up to name here, but Anne McCaffrey and Ray Bradbury come first to mind. My father always wanted to be a novelist. He had magazine articles published, but never a novel. I loved to read and tell stories. It seemed like a good idea when I started!
Q: Any tips for new writers?
A: Write as YOU need to write. Everyone says different things about this like “write every day” etc. I think you write as YOU need to, and if you are writing a novel, write the first draft as fast as you can. Then take the time you need when fleshing it out. Also, if indie publishing, go into it PLANNING on getting a professional editor to go over your work before you publish it. EVERY single “Traditionally” published author has been edited by a pro. Do yourself and the rest of the Indie community a favor. After you’ve done your research on pro editors, spend the money. You will then actually have the book you thought you wrote.
David Edmonds
Congratulations to Lisa! The first sentence grabs you–“The first time I saw the ghost, I wasn’t dreaming.” A well-deserved honor for a talented writer..