Writers of the Future, Guest Posting

Writers of the Future

A funny thing happened yesterday. I received a call on my cell phone marked "NO CALLER ID." Now, here's where I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of phone conversation. In most cases, I'll gladly take a text or a tweet instead. So usually when I get a call like this, I send that sucker straight to voicemail. This time, however, I picked up. And man, I'm glad I did.

"This is Joni from the Writers of the Future contest," the voice on the other end said. My breath caught a little. "I'm calling to tell you that you're a finalist."

Woohoo! The story I entered in this year's Quarter 1 contest has made it through coordinating judge David Farland's culling process. I've known for more than a month that my entry had made the "first pass," but that doesn't guarantee even so much as an honorable mention. So to say I was thrilled to find out I'm a finalist would be an understatement. Now my story and seven others will be sent off to a panel of quarterly judges, who will narrow the eight finalists down to three winners (first, second, and third place). The winners get a cash prize, a fancy awards gala, and the chance to attend an intensive, five-day master-class workshop. Cross your fingers for me.

Guest Post

While I've got your eyes, I'd like to direct them to Adam Gaylord's blog. Adam is a science fiction and fantasy writer like myself, and he recently invited me over for a guest post. If you'd like to read my take on market research for short fiction writers, it went live today. 

This is a topic I've done some chewing on, so when Adam sent me the invite, I figured this was a nice opportunity to talk about my (fairly involved) research process. In fact, when I actually sat down and wrote the post, I discovered I had even more to say than I anticipated. I wrote so many words on the subject that Adam decided to break the post into two. The first part is up now. The second part will be posted next week.