Where's That Envelope? Oh, Here it is - Thanks!

Once upon a time, a writer’s blog started a writing contest.

Time passed; the blog’s name changed, as did the format and name of the contest. But today, we announce the second winner.

Novel Rocket’s LAUNCH PAD Contest: Boosting You Out of the Slush Pile is for unpublished novelists. Entrants submitted their first chapters and synopses in six categories, and in June through November of this year, we chose one category winner per month: Historical Fiction in June; Suspense/Crime/Mystery in July; Contemporary/Women’s Fiction in August; Middle Grade/Young Adult in September; Contemporary Romance in October; and last month, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror.

Then, we recruited a new panel of judges, none of whom had participated in any of the previous rounds, to select the best of the best from among those six.

The results are all tallied, and our Grand Prize Winner is...

The Middle Grade/Young Adult winner, The Corner of Hope and Fear, by Moriah McStay Lee, of Memphis, Tennessee.

Some of the judges’ comments:

The story draws you along, making you want to know more.

The voice is fresh -- the story starts exceptionally well.

The writing in all the entries was fantastic, but this just had a little something extra.

Moriah will receive a nifty certificate from Novel Rocket to commemorate her win. But more importantly, we'll provide her with a yet-to-be-determined selection industry professionals to whom she can submit directly, circumventing the slush pile.

Congratulations, Moriah! We wish you every success!

We also want to thank each of you, our readers, who helped keep this contest alive by submitting your entries. We had the opportunity to review a lot of excellent stories, and we’re thankful for the privilege of providing even a small amount of help and encouragement to budding writers.

I personally would also like to thank each of the judges who gave of their time and expertise.

Responding to reader suggestions, this year we added the benefit of doing a critique of each entry received. We’re leaning toward continuing the contest next year and are considering an additional change or two for 2012. As before, if you have any suggestions for the upcoming year, please let us know your thoughts.

You may email us with all your contest-related questions, comments, and ideas at NovelRocketContest@gmail.com.

We wish you all a blessed Christmas. Happy writing!