Friday, December 20, 2024

Regarding RPLA for Blogging

Just as a personal note, just got an email from the Florida Writers' Association that they are making changes for the 2025 Royal Palm Literary Awards, and one that impacts me is they are dropping the "Blog or Article" category from the Nonfiction awards.

It can boil down to how few submissions there seem to be for that category: Blogging is an obscure form of writing in this day, and fewer article writers for things like newspapers and magazines.

You may have noticed this year that the Royal Palms had no winners for that category. I had submitted four for 2024 and none of them made it past Semi-Finalist: Previous years I at least had one make it that far when I submitted that many (the one other year I didn't make Semi was when I submitted only two blog articles). 

This is for me rather heart-breaking. As a blogger, I'd like to think that this form of writing still has merit. There is a skill to creating nonfiction works, be it memoir or reporting or essay or opinion/persuasive. 

I think FWA will have Nonfiction awards going forward, but it's going to be a question if any of them can accept the type of blog writing - essay/opinion - I've been doing. I will see about submitting my other works - my short fiction - in due course.

It's kind of sad that I may be the last winner for Blog/Article writing for the Royal Palms.

Alas.

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