Literary Award for The Night is Done

There's been an ongoing joke in my house that I've spent too much time submitting my work: short stories, essays, and novels, to contests that I never seem to win. It's like the lottery or something, the chances I'll win are a long shot in today's competitive publishing world. In addition, some contests charge reading fees, hence I've also spent a considerable amount of money on these contests.

Well, it finally paid off for me when my novel The Night is Done won the Adirondack Center for Writing's Literary Award for Best Book of Fiction 2017. After some car trouble and a late start from my home in Upstate, NY and a five hour drive to Lake Placid, I got to the award ceremony just as they were announcing the winner.

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It was worth the drive though! I met some interesting authors and fans of the literary arts and the ceremony was in a beautiful setting overlooking the Adirondack high peaks. This award means a lot to me partly because it is my first award for my writing. But mostly because it is a recognition of  all of the work I put into the Durant Family Saga. While I was researching and writing the books, traveling up and down the east coast, to England,  I would often asked myself "why am I doing this?" I wasn't getting paid to do it, I had no publishing contract enticing me to complete the work, I used my own savings to do it all. So the fact that the last book in the trilogy won a literary award validates all of that effort. Thank you to the judges of the Adirondack Center for Writing and for those people in the Adirondacks who support the arts.