Now, you can meet the winners of the Words of Belief Holiday Story Writing Contest. Attracting such a diversity of voices and range of topics submitted to their first annual writing contest, their publishing team wanted to share the thoughts and emotions of the writers behind the two selected winners. Read about their experience submitting, their unbiased opinions of Words of Belief, their different writing methods and even their jumps for joy at discovering their selection by the judges.
Grand Prize Winner: Tyler Powell for “Churchmas Eve”
WOB Question: How did you feel entering the contest?
Powell’s Answer: I felt great entering the contest, not out of any thought of winning, but because it was a step for me in pursuing what I’d like to do as a career. The experience of having a prompt, developing a story, executing it and then submitting it for review was the first (and truest) reward. If I hadn’t won or been a finalist, I would still have spent time working on my craft, and I would still be a story richer for it.
Q: How did you react when you found out that you won?
A: When I learned that I had won the contest, my first reaction was pure disbelief. I had no expectation that I was going to win, though I did hold some hope that I would be selected as a finalist. I read the congratulatory e-mail two or 18 times and then double-checked what it said against the website. Then, I danced a little dance.
Q: What did you know about Words of Belief before you entered the contest?
A: I wasn’t familiar with Words of Belief prior to hearing about the contest. So far, I’m impressed with what it has to offer. I am a big fan of the possibilities of new media — as a writer, it’s wonderful to be able to have such convenient access to potential readers.
Q: How did you learn about the contest?
A: I learned about the Words of Belief contest by spending a night doing endless searches for any information regarding writing contests, or short story markets, and following link to link, looking for more. Whenever I found something that looked promising or interesting, I would keep that window open. The idea of writing a holiday-themed story really appealed to me, and the simple entry process for the Words of Belief contest kept that window open, and ultimately led to my writing my submission.
Q: Is this your first time entering a writing contest? What can you tell us about your experience?
A: Yes — this was my first time entering a writing contest. It was wonderful. I’ve held several jobs over the course of my youngish life, but so far none have engaged me so much as writing. And really, the contest for me was not much more than a good excuse to write something specific. I wanted an idea, or a theme, or a prompt to write against — I find it difficult to start with a completely blank page. Words of Belief provided me with the impetus to write a holiday story, and so instead of starting from scratch, I could ask myself which holiday to write about. With Christmas approaching, and being such a central holiday in my life, I enjoyed the idea of trying to come up with a story for it. If nothing else, I figured that I would have a Christmas story to share with friends and family.
After the story was written, the rest (formatting and e-mailing per instructions) was simple. I don’t yet know how other contests compare, but if it’s always this easy to enter and the response times are always so quick, I think I’d like to enter a few more.
Q: When did you start writing? What is your experience with writing in your genre?
A: I still have my first story. It’s called “The Chicken and the Fox” and it concerns a fox who’s trying to break into a farm to eat, well, a chicken. The fox tries and fails, tries and fails, and eventually gives up in bitter frustration … to try for some grapes instead!
Oh! See? It’s a clever play on Aesop’s “The Fox and the Grapes!” Or, at least it’s what passed as clever for me when I wrote the story in 1st grade for a class assignment. After that, I didn’t really start writing until late in high school when I fell in love with writing essays and also decided to try my hand at a few short stories, most of which I’ve lost over the years.
Since then, I’ve written off and on, taking some creative writing classes and reading several “how-to” books, but always ultimately thinking of writing as a hobby while I make rent money in a more stable career. Sometime not too long ago, I realized that this was a poor strategy for me, and that I needed to make writing my primary profession. Because, I’ve come to learn that I don’t much care for anything else. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to make rent from month to month, but I believe I’d be happier as a poor writer than as a well-to-do office manager or sales associate.
To return from my digression, I haven’t yet settled on any particular genre, either large (novel, non-fiction, play) or small (fantasy, mainstream, western … okay, probably not western). As a reader, I tend to love almost everything, and so I’d like to try my hand at writing almost everything.
Q: What is your writing process? How does your work come to you?
A: My writing process is to force myself to sit at the computer and type. The two biggest challenges I have in writing are: procrastination and self-criticism. It’s hard for me to start writing, and when I’ve written even a paragraph, it’s hard for me not to read it over and want to scrap the whole project in disgust. And so, I try to schedule “writing time” daily, even if it means just staring at the screen in misery and frustration, and even if it means putting off “necessary” chores. Then, when I do write, I don’t allow myself to re-read or edit as I go.
The dishes can come later — after 1,000 words, say — and editing is great and necessary after typing “the end.” But I’ve found that if I put the dishes first and edit as I go that I don’t often manage that thousand words, let alone the two sweetest.
Beyond simply getting myself to write, the details of my process are much less important. I’ve experimented with writing extensive outlines and “winging it,” or starting with a plot versus starting with a character, and I think that every method is valid and effective relative to the writer and the project.
About the question “how does your work come to you,” I guess my most honest answer is “through my passion.” I believe that stories are bred in conflict and emotion, and so if something upsets me or thrills me or moves me in some real way, there’s probably a story there. I try to look inside myself, and figure out what it is that I’m reacting to — eliminating the sundry inconsequentials and isolating the true nature of the situation. Then, with true nature isolated, I can build the story back up again with whatever imagined details seem most appropriate and interesting.
Which is not to say it’s an easy thing to do, or that I’m all that adept at it. I just hope to get better with practice.
Q: What was the inspiration for your winning title?
A: I really hope that this isn’t too obnoxious of me, but I don’t believe I’m going to answer this question in full. On reflection, I fear that talking too much about my inspiration might drain some of the energy from the story itself. It will help the strings to show, and start to push people towards certain prescribed understandings. I’d rather people come to it without any other direction on my part, so they can reach their own, independent conclusions.
Suffice it to say that I was mainly inspired by the phrase “Jesus is the reason for the season” and also by a Christmas party I attended many years ago, thrown by the youth minister at a prominent fundamentalist church in my hometown.
Q: Did you meet any difficulties while writing your winning entry?
A: Writing is difficult. Apart from the normal challenges of word choice, characterization, trying to keep things interesting while sneaking in expository information, crafting helpful metaphors and endless more, I think my biggest problem was editing down for length.
My first “final” draft came in well above the 5,000 word limit (I think I was initially at around 5,500 and change), and it really didn’t feel like there was any good place to cut. But painful editing is a part of the writing process, and it turned out to be a good difficulty for me to face. Brevity, sadly, is not one of my virtues, and I have no doubt that the ruthless editing I had to do improved my story immensely.
Q: Have you published any other work? And how do you feel about your work being published through Words of Belief now?
A: Technically, I have published some other work, but only very little. Several years ago I wrote an opinion which I sent in, unsolicited, to my then-local newspaper (Los Angeles Daily News). I was deeply gratified a couple of weeks later when an editor gave me a call to tell me they were running my piece, and absolutely blown away when it came out as the color lead of the Op-Ed section on a Sunday paper. My mother had a copy laminated.
The only other piece is a short story that was published in a literary journal at my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz. I shared a Latin course with the editor of the journal, and knowing that I liked to write, she asked me to make a submission. Unfortunately, a week later my appendix ruptured, and so I had to withdraw from my courses, but in my convalescence I wrote a short story and submitted it anonymously through the journal’s website.
The next quarter, not having received any feedback regarding my submission, I ran into the journal’s editor and asked her how the journal was coming. She said that she was disappointed at the poor quality of submissions, and that they’d only received a few “gems.” I asked her what made a gem a gem, and she said she would describe it via example. She proceeded to describe my story!
So, yeah, my publications have thus far been very few and far between, but they’ve each been rewarding to my ego, and treasured in my memory.
Being published through Words of Belief is a true blessing for me, just as those others have been, and will now be its own story for me, for as long as I tell them. I know that my self-esteem should be such that I don’t require validation from any outside source regarding my skill, or the quality of my work. But, if I’m honest with myself, I know that this kind of validation is supremely important to me, and will help in those quiet times at night when I’m stuck and start seriously doubting my own ability.
Crude ego-stroking aside, publication means that people will be reading my fiction. And that’s pretty cool, too.
Q: What are your five favorite books?
A: Instead of my five favorite books, I’ll give you five of my favorite books; no good mother can choose among her children, and no bibliophile like me can fairly pick from so many deep-seated loves:
Watership Down by Richard Adams
I wouldn’t have thought, prior to reading this, that a novel about rabbits in search of a new home could be anything more than children’s book fluff. But Watership Down contains characters that I love as much as I’ve ever loved characters, in an epic, almost-mythic tale of suspense, adventure and ingenuity. A truly gorgeous novel.
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis is a great and beloved fiction writer, what with Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce and many others. However, as a non-fiction writer, I think he is almost without equal. Mere Christianity is as compelling, logical, and elegant a presentation of Christianity as I’ve ever read, heard or otherwise encountered. It manages to pay homage to both faith and reason while never pandering to the reader or shying away from the tougher theological issues. It is a masterful apology written without apology.
The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
I’ve picked The Black Tulip as a bit of a conceit. I’ve loved Dumas in almost everything he’s written, and especially the Musketeer’s series and The Count of Monte Cristo. The Black Tulip is lesser-known, and much smaller in both page count and scale (the plot revolves around a man obsessed with raising tulips), but manages to pack in the high adventure and drama that Dumas delivers so well. If someone had never read Dumas before, The Three Musketeers or Monte Cristo might be too intimidating due simply to their imposing girth. The Black Tulip is a friendlier first-read, and a great way to create more fans for a deserving author.
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
Sagan’s collection of essays lauding science, and the skepticism that guides it, is funny, fascinating, and insightful. He has a true love for man’s ability to reason, and there’s nothing better than reading the work of a passionate genius.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
I’ve heard that there are abridged versions of Hunchback that cut out the majority of the setting descriptions, and architectural discussion, etc. Who would ever want that? If you read Moby Dick, you have to be prepared for a little whaling talk; if you read Hugo, you’re going to hear about every last cobblestone. That’s why you’re reading him in the first place! On top of almost placing you inside of Notre Dame cathedral and letting you ring the bell, Hugo creates such dynamic, deep and compelling characters, they can never fade from your mind. (If your only version of Phoebus and Claude Frollo are from the Disney version, and you’ve never heard of Jehan, you owe it to yourself to read the novel.)
It is in memory of the feelings inspired by novels like this that I want to write, to move men as I have been moved.
Q: Do you have any advice or tips for other emerging writers?
A: Only this: write. I’d guess that many writers are like me — we mostly live in our heads. And, being so very imaginative, we can come up with a million and one excellent reasons to put off writing. But even the right reasons are wrong if you want to be a writer and they get in your way.
Decide that, no matter what argues against it, you’ll regularly sit down and put pen to paper … or finger to key, or whatever. And, now that you’ve made that decision, start right now and don’t look up until you’ve hit 500 words. Keep doing that from day to day, and you can’t help but produce and improve.
Or at least that’s the theory that keeps me coming back to the keyboard.
Q: Is there anything else that you would like to share? Thoughts? Interesting facts? A short bio? Or a favorite quote or saying?
A: Not at all. Actually, looking back at the majority of my responses, I can’t help but to regret my bluster. I write a story so that people can read the story, not to have a platform to bore people with the uninteresting details of my life! But once I get started, I just can’t seem to shut up …
Seriously, I’m not important; my work, good or bad, is what matters. Go read that! And, if you’re a fellow writer, whip up something for me to read. It’s a friendly, fun way to share our hopes, ideas, dreams, and everything else that matters in our world.
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Editor’s Selection: Judy Nickles for “I Was Hungry: A Very Kate Christmas”
Our Question: How did you feel entering the contest?
Nickels’ Answer: I just did it — and hoped for the best! I knew that if I didn’t place, I had gained experience in submitting.
Q: How did you react when you found out that you won?
A: I hate to admit, at my age, that I squealed and bounced up and down, and the dog came running into the study to see what was the matter with “mommy.”
Q: What did you know about Words of Belief before you entered the contest?
A: I wasn’t acquainted with Words of Belief before entering the contest.
Q: How did you learn about the contest?
A: A writing friend in another state sent me the link.
Q: Is this your first time entering a writing contest? How did the Words of Belief contest compare to others you’ve entered before?
A: I’ve entered one other contest, but I didn’t place. The fact that the Words of Belief contest didn’t require an entry fee impressed me. Also, the maximum length limit was larger and gave me more room to work.
Q: When did you start writing? What is your experience with writing in your genre?
A: I suppose I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil. The original “Dragnet” was on television or radio, and I wrote two parodies: “Fishnet” and “Hairnet” in the early 1950s. I still have them somewhere! In junior high and high school, I was blessed with wonderful English teachers who assigned creative essay topics, which I loved writing. They also marked every error and didn’t accept “fluff.” My freshman teacher agreed to accept essays in poetry form since I also loved writing that.
I don’t write one specific genre. I try to incorporate romance with mystery in many pieces, and I draw ideas from my other hobby, genealogy. I’ve turned over a lot of old bones in researching various family lines!
Q: What is your writing process? How does your work come to you?
A: Usually I just take an idea and write, but sometimes that itself is not the best idea. I have about 26 more “Kate” stories, and those were written as they came to me. Writing something longer, like a novel, takes some research and pre-planning. I’ve begun to experiment with scene outlines — nothing too detailed but a sort of general roadmap.
Q: What was the inspiration for your winning title?
A: It was the season for a Christmas “Kate” story. I usually give my stories a title after they’re written, and I look for something unusual and “eye-catching,” but which also speaks to the underlying theme of the story.
Q: Did you meet any difficulties while writing your winning entry?
A: It was necessary to revise the story quite extensively from the original, so I had to be sure that all the new character names and settings were correct throughout. I’m my own worst critic, so I kept going back and reading and making small changes right up until the night I finally hit the send button on the computer.
Q: Have you published any other work? And how do you feel about your work being published through Words of Belief now?
A: I’ve only begun to pursue publication since I retired in the spring of 2007. I’ve had one short-short story published in Long Story Short, an e-zine. Another story has been accepted for publication in an Arkansas quarterly, The Storyteller. I also have a contract with The Wild Rose Press for a novel, Where Is Papa’s Shining Star? which is in the editing process, and I’m working on a sequel to submit as well.
Obviously, I was delighted to learn that I’d placed in the Words of Belief Holiday Story Contest and look forward to seeing the complete anthology and reading the other authors’ stories. The excerpt from the grand prize winner intrigues me, so I need to know where the story is going!
Q: Do you maintain a Website or a blog?
A: My website is: www.judynickles.com, and my writing blog is: The Word Place. Come visit me!
Q: What are your five favorite books?
A: I’ve always loved all kinds of books — history, biography, mystery, romance. I grew up reading Grace Livingston Hill’s books and have a 1934 copy of The Christmas Bride, which I read every December. Jane Eyre, The Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy — yes, some are children’s books, and that makes four! I’ll list a huge volume called Children of Pride as the fifth. It’s a collection of letters and journal entries of a southern family in a 20-30 year period that spans the Civil War and Reconstruction. I could name many, many more books that I love, but you said five! (Could I sneak in Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation books? How about Edward Everett Horton’s The Man Without a Country? And can I add all of Elisabeth Elliot’s book? Do I have to stop?)
Q: Do you have any advice or tips for other emerging writers?
A: Even though I’ve been writing all my life — and I’m not telling how long that is! — I feel as though I am also an emerging writer, so I’m not sure I’m qualified to give advice. I always wrote just for the love of writing, and I think that if a writer doesn’t love it, she won’t do it well. It’s important to me to like my characters, to feel that they are real people — so real that I’m reluctant to let them go at the end of the story. I set many stories during the Depression and World War II, both of which have a great fascination for me, since I’m a product of a family that lived through both. You have to be “tuned in” to time and place and willing to do the research to make your writing believable.
For me, it has been very important to have friends who also write. They’ve been a tremendous source of encouragement and support as I’ve dipped my toe in the publishing ocean. You have to have that connection — or I do, anyway.
Q: Is there anything else that you would like to share? Thoughts? Interesting facts? A short bio? Or a favorite quote or saying?
A: I’m just a retired teacher, and while I miss the classroom, it’s nice to have time to concentrate on writing and see where that path leads. I spent my first two teaching years in Africa. When my boys were young, we’d hitch up the camper every summer and take off ancestor-hunting. They grew up in cemeteries and courthouses, and they’re still interested in family history even now that they’re grown. I feel there are still “places to go, people to meet, things to do.” My grandfather was still on the go at 95 year old, so I hope I am, too.
I’ve got quotes on stickies all over the place, but if I had to share one that has pointed the way for my life, it would be this:
Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be … The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms …
-Deuteronomy 33: 25, 27
Filed under: Announcements, Authors in the News | Tagged: anthology, Churchmas Eve, contest, December, editor's selection, grand prize, holiday, I Was Hungry, interview, Judy Nickles, story, Tis the Season, Tyler Powell, WOB, Words of Belief, writing | Leave a Comment »
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Unfortunately, due to labor restrictions and developing Author Solutions, Inc. partnerships, ASI must suspend the AuthorTree Blog until further notice.
Please be advised that the AuthorTreeHouse Blog will suspend posting until after the coming holiday weeks, but rest assured, we will resume normal operations effective January 6, 2009.
Earlier this week, Computerworld Blog posted an article entitled “
The short answer, not really. As the Computerworld blog suggests, the music industry has adapted to MP3s and iPods (and now there’s even development in wireless cloud technology), but does this comparison hold water when it comes to books?
However, the value of the e-book doesn’t mean that printing is dead. While there’s no doubt that both established and emerging companies dealing with written content, whether newspapers, books, magazines, among others, will shift to digital representations of their content that can be downloaded via e-readers or phones, the fact remains that we still print, we own printers, we buy physical books and magazines, we used post-its and write notes on paper. Just because the world has made room for digital formats does not spell the end of printing. 
Who knows for sure? Of course publishers should be looking into methods of offering new books in digital files that are compatible with modern e-readers and phones. Of course they should also protect their tradition and primary source of revenue, namely printed books. Who can guess at the real internal affairs of traditional publishers, but I’m sure they’re considering their options, developing programs and technologies, weighing the costs against the potential long term benefits.
Obviously, both are different, appealing to different audiences for a multitude of different reason, some laid out there, some not. While it’s true that the perfect e-reader will inevitably exist one day, and even become the norm among readers, physical books will still exist, cluttering bookshelves, adorning coffee tables maybe. But if the printed book is to die, I say, let it die naturally then. Instead of comparing it to a radically different medium that’s equally as valuable (for different reasons), one that’s in demand to different individuals.
Tis the season of holiday cheer and bargain shopping for loved ones, of course. That’s the reason Inkubook.com allows everyone an absolutely ingenious way to design quality color books and capture Christmas memories with your very own pictures, from the comfort of your own home computer. 
Back from the holiday week with a bang, Words of Belief has selected its winners and finalists for the Holiday Story Writing Contest they hosted in the previous months. Out of hundreds of submissions their judges received, only 15 were pulled for publication in their coming anthology, Tis the Season: Selected Stories of Contemporary Fiction and Nonfiction.
Jeanette, the overbearing mother, wants to observe the strictest definition of Christmas. She wants no gifts, Christmas lights, or carols. Her son, Bobby, like any kid, wants a version of the holiday that is more festive and embraces contemporary traditions. And Larry, Jeantte’s husband and Bobby’s father, is stuck in the middle. Larry concedes to his wife’s demands for a stern interpretation but he longs for Bobby to enjoy Christmas as well.
She gave herself a challenge: recounting a child’s story more than fifty years later. In doing so, she’s cultivated a fine blend of a young girl’s perception of the way things were at the time, yet filtered through the older, wiser eyes and mind of someone looking back on a meaningful time of life.
Ah, the holidays. For some, it is a time of faith; for others, it is a time of family or feasting or frantic shopping, or some combination of the above. Ask almost anyone you know, and odds are good they have a story to tell about a holiday experience. This was the jumping-off point for Words of Belief’s short story contest.
Words of Belief is a Christian self-publishing company that employs a free online publishin
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Greetings all, this is Tasheena, posting here at AuthorTreeHouse on an innovative and effective way to publish and sell your original content online in an affordable digital version. 
Justin here, and today we’re posting the winner of the fifth AuthorTree Online Spotlight Competition. Now, please join me in congratulating Gary Greenfield, this month’s featured AuthorTree author.
First and foremost, Greenfield’s enthusiasm, great management and genuine desire to help professionals as well as organizations are rivaled by none other. He hosts conferences, maintains his own websites, forges successful, lucrative partnerships, features videos and actively manages blogs, not to mention the book he’s published to reinforce the work values he teaches
Become AuthorTreeHouse’s next spotlighted author by creating a free Web site with AuthorTree and posting a comment with your exact URL below. Once the bloggers have carefully reviewed each site submitted, a new author will be selected for a monthly presence within the company blog.
Greetings all, this is Tasheena, posting here at AuthorTreeHouse on an exciting new opportunity for GLBT writers and self-published authors. 
Not to mention, if you’re a legitimate literary journal or publishing company running a contest relevant for established authors and emerging writers, we’ll list the details of your contest within a blog, discussing the guidelines, prizes and potential benefits. 
