Mystery Writing Competition

Picture of the Day for 1/14/2015. I was asked to help judge six entries in the Freddie Award for Writing Excellence in the hardboiled category. Entries consisted of the first 20 pages of an unpublished manuscript. It was great fun. It was interesting to see the various skill levels across all the entries. All six authors had excellent/creative ideas and there were a few that could really turn into something with a bit of polishing. And there was one entry that is publication-ready. I was completely entranced by the author's writing style and I was disappointed when the 20 pages came to an end. I was convinced the author was a man, but just found out that the author is a woman which impresses me even more that she was so successful in writing from another gender's point of view. I was delighted to hear today that this author made the finalist round. I hope she wins!