In what is now becoming an annual tradition involving this blog:
Well, it's a new year started and already I gotta think about what to submit to the Florida Writers Association's Royal Palm Literary Awards for their Non-Fiction / Blogging category.
Last year, I had looked at submitting five articles from this blog to contend, but found out that FWA was capping ALL submissions to five total. Meaning if I wanted to submit to any of the Short Story categories, I need to limit my Blog submissions to make room.
Well, I do have at least one short I'd like to submit - maybe have something novel-wise to submit in the unpublished categories as well - so I do need to make some hard choices here and weed down aggressively to maybe three blog articles. It doesn't help me that this 2022 was in my personal opinion one of my better blogging years: Unlike previous years where I could easily narrow down to ten or so articles to consider, I have a ton of articles this time I feel are quality work.
I need a lot more input than usual on this.
So to the nine regular followers to this blog, lemme know which of these articles I ought to submit to the FWA judges:
The Darkest Habit That Could End trump's Reign of Error
War Crimes - I do like this personally, it's one of my more heartfelt essays
The Day When Women Become Second-Class Citizens
Dreading the Oncoming Storm - This is the one I submitted to Batocchio for the annual Jon Swift Memorial
DeSantis vs The Right to Think
What Did the Secret Service Know...?
Who's Dat Knocking at Mar-A-Lago? It's the Feds With a Warrant, Go Figure
Emperor Norton versus The Madman - I have a personal fondness for this one, but doubt it will appeal to others
Hoping for trump's Last Chapter - arguably the longest blog article I've ever written, but also one that's all over the place in projection and prediction, it might be too much
All Which Wicked Designs - maybe a more concise anti-trump blog article than the previous one, arguably more poetic
DeSantis' Cruelty, and Florida's Ruin
The Mindset of My Schizoid Generation
The Revolutions Will Not Be Localized
Let the Guilty Verdicts Be Read...
The Hypocrisy of Pickpockets in Florida
Thoughts About the 2022 Midterms
Damn, that's a lot - 27! - to whittle down. Last year, I easily knocked the considerations down to a simple top ten, but this 2022 well it demanded a lot to comment on. Looking back, there was a lot to say about the Russian-Ukrainian war, and a lot more to say about donald trump as his legal woes - and exposure to documents theft and espionage charges! - kicked into high gear around August 2022.
I am thinking "War Crimes" is a lock, I am partial to "Oncoming Storm," but I am keen on a good third essay to submit. Maybe a fourth.
Let me know what you think, please. Comment here if you can, email me your suggestions, make sure there's a subject line in the email so my spam filter won't catch it by mistake, thanks.
Happy new year, peeps!
Update 1/29/23: I've thought it over, my current preferences are "War Crimes," "Day When Women...," "Oncoming Storm," "All Which Wicked Designs," "Great Russian Skedaddle," and "Schizoid Generation." Thing is, I still need to wheedle it down to four of those (the fifth RPLA submission will be my published short story "The Brides of WiFi.").
Update 7/25/23: It's about time for the judging to wrap up for the Semi-finalist grades, and... I just got emails back that "War Crimes" and "Schizoid Generation" did not achieve Semi-finalist status. The first is a bit of a stunner: I consider "War Crimes" one of my more passionate writings I've done. There are no guarantees on how the other submissions are going: some delays can occur if a particular judge is not making deadlines, and it can depend on the volume of submissions they're reading.
Alas, I just got the email today for my published short story "The Brides of WiFi" and that DID NOT achieve Semi-Finalist. I know, I know, short stories are insanely competitive, everybody in FWA has at least one short every year and they all probably submit theirs for judging. It's just... Sigh, being a fiction writer is a dream for me, whereas the blogging is me getting some anger issues off my chest. If I'd gotten even a Semi-Finalist for a work of fiction I submitted for judging, I'd be over the moon.
Update 8/31/23: Heard back from the judges about the remaining two articles in competition. "Dreading the Oncoming Storm" did NOT reach Finalist status.
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That means "All Which Wicked Designs" DID reach Finalist status and that I can be up for another Top Three prize for the Royal Palm Literary Award in Non-Fiction / Published Blog or Article category! We will find out this October at the dinner ceremony how it goes.
Update 10/22/23: Reasonably thrilled to return from the Royal Palms awards banquet as a GOLD winner in the Non-Fiction / Published Blog or Article category! Hopefully they'll email me the digital award thumbnail as soon as the conference ends today.
Here is the award icon!
1 comment:
I like "The Day When Women Become Second-Class Citizens" because it accurately pins the fall of Roe on Hillary's retarded detractors, who ignored our predictions at the time. I like the one about Emperor Norton because it's about Emperor Norton.
All of it is good, though, although I realize that's not a helpful observation for these purposes.
Good luck!
-Doug in Sugar Pine
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