Rosanne Dingli

Rosanne Dingli

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Award-winning Authors: Why Winning is Winning

Winning an award for writing can be a big thing for a writer. Big because writing on the whole can be a thankless, lonely way to spend a large chunk of a life.

Awards are validating: they say Well done! A writer has the pleasure of knowing someone who knows about writing has read the entry and valued it. Someone has weighed it and measured it against some stiff competition. And it has succeeded.

There is another way awards add merit to writers' work. If placed well in evidence, details of awards can work to earn the writer credibility. Placed on a CV, in a signature line on emails, as part of the credits on book trailers, or in the biblio-biography on a writer's site, awards are testimonials of work done... work done very well, in fact. Such details speak volumes: they tell editors, agents and publishers that the writer has fulfilled criteria that matter. These might seem like obvious things, but they carry weight in the publishing industry: understanding rules, keeping to a deadline, submitting correctly, writing to a theme, composing creatively for a particular audience, sticking to a defined length... and doing all this better than other entrants.

All writers know how hard it can be to interest anyone in their work. After one has exhausted family and friends, finding anyone willing to read what you write is not easy. Submitting a piece of writing to a competition guarantees a willing eager audience - at least for that piece of carefully prepared writing. This ought to be great incentive to writers working in isolation.Someone will welcome your entry and give it all their attention.

I have a list of awards I have won on my website. They are evidence of hard work, writing skills ... and that I am at heart a very competitive creature!

There are many contests open to writers: googling the words 'writing contests' brings up literally thousands of results. Writers can make their own list of possible contests to enter. A word of caution is necessary here: there are a number of scams running, so it is useful to check the credentials of any site running a contest to see whether it has been tested and found to be sound by experienced writers, or whether anything has been found to be suspect about the people running the award. After that, setting oneself a goal and looking forward to hearing the results can only be exciting and motivating.


At the beginning of a writing career, especially, entering competitions can mean the difference between achieving status and being able to use it to advantage, or remaining an unknown quantity. Although it can be hard work, submitting entries to writing competitions can be seen as an important part of a writer's discipline and a great way to add to a portfolio of writing. Winning can bring kudos: sometimes a monetary prize is awarded, or an offer of publication made.

Awards are definitely something writers can say testify to the quality of  their writing.
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14 comments:

  1. Hey, Rosanne--Your new book sounds like something I would really enjoy.

    As for your take on awards, it seems to me that every author has a different barometer by which they measure their success. Personally, I like royalties!

    Everybody seems to be moving their blogs to Blogspot. I think Karla, Donna, Martin and I may be the only ones left at MySpace....

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  2. Norma: we do not have long to wait now. According to Luke should be available by Christmas.

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  3. Hi Rosanne, great advice re awards and using them to add credibility and validation. I wouldn't have thought of it at all. In fact I'm the shy, retiring type who probably would have brushed off any mention of it/them. I have been chosen to be published which is a huge honour as I only started writing at the end of February 2010 and poetry about two months later. There is a competition attached so, perhaps, I will be able to use your advice after all.

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  4. adeeyoyo - everything you accomplish in the publishing world is important. Your awards should be on your website, and being an award-winning writer is something any author can be rightfully proud of. No one is going to think well of you if you hide your light under a bushel.

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  5. Nice collection of awards! Although there are a lot more out there for literary than there are for genre writers. But they are heaps of fun :)

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  6. Very nice collection of awards. Ar these awards known or are they just for industry insiders?

    http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

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  7. Dear Merrilee and Man of LB: Thanks for looking at my list of awards: they are most Australian literary awards for short fiction run by university journals and literary magazines, but also some genre contests like 'mystery' and 'foodie'. To set myself up as a writer from 1985 to 1998, I made sure I entered contests and got stories published as part of my track record. It has helped enormously.

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  8. Nice blog, great book, I wrote a end of the world scenario not unlike your book, you can visit the 7th sons of the 7th sons at http://hipriestess.com/blog I write scifi flash fiction, and I've been blogging for years, I also wrote a book Birthing the Lucifer star, and Scifi sunday's with the hipriestess 5 cent tales, and my favorte and newest Ressurection vs Reincarnation.

    my first published book won me my website, even though I am really an artist, I decided to try my hand at writing.

    My genre is mythical in proportion and I like to write end of the world scenarios, many different ones, although good or bad, depending on your perspective, they still end the same....

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  9. Mythical in proportion is the way to go, Hipriestess.

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  10. Hi Rosanne,

    This sounds like good advise to add credibility to your writing, especially if a person is looking to move from hobby status to being considered a professional. Any advise on protecting your work during this process?

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  11. It is so difficult to publish - or even get anyone to read your work - yourself, that it's hard to think anyone would have better success at it than the original author! Do not worry about infringement of copyright. It very rarely happens and is only the fear of amateur writers.
    Go ahead and enjoy writing and submitting. No one would steal the work of an unknown writer. Ideas do not sell, and you cannot copyright an idea anyway.

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  12. Nice reminder Rosanne. Entering some contests and competitions has been on my to do list for some time now. I recently placed 10th out of 30 contestants in a blog contest, but unfortunately the judging had little to do with actual writing.

    How about a post of regularly occurring contests writers can submit to?

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  13. Yes, Paul - good idea. That's one for my to do list now.

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  14. I have been looking at contests on Poets & Writers Magazine, all with c. $15 fees or higher, and seemingly won all the time by MFA grads from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. A little skeptical.

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