Congratulations to Stuart!

Anyone who's read Brandilyn Collins novels about the fictitious town of Kanner Lake, Idaho may remember the character S-Man, who takes a seat in the Java Joint to write his science fiction novel. This character was modeled after Stuart Stockton, who just sold his novel Starfire to Marcher Lord Press for spring 2009 release. Brandilyn gives her version of the news here.

I'm thrilled for Stuart because he's the first person whose work I've critiqued that has made it through the maze to have a novel accepted for publication. (We were in the same crit group in preparation for the 2007 Genesis contest.)

And I'm thrilled for him because he's a darn good writer. Congrats!

Christy nominations

Christy Awards are designed to "recognize excellence in Christian fiction written by contemporary authors and highlight the breadth and diversity of Christian fiction".

Nominations have just been released for the publication year 2007, with final decisions to be made by July '08. Now, of course, there are many categories, and you know me well enough to know that I don't care a toad's toenail about most of them. However, there are a couple of categories I'd like to mention here.

Visionary is the category name for anything speculative. The three nominations are:
Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet (WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group)

The Restorer by Sharon Hinck (NavPress Publishing Group)

Scarlet by Stephen R. Lawhead (Thomas Nelson)

Pop any of those titles up in the search bar of this blog and you'll see that I've read and enjoyed them all. I am a particular fan of Sharon Hinck, having loved everything she's written (haven't gotten my hands on her sixth novel yet.) But Jeffrey Overstreet's debut novel was also very strong, very beautiful, and quite different from anything Sharon has written. I'm glad I don't have to vote.

The other category of interest to me is First Novel:

Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet (WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group)

Demon: A Memoir by Tosca Lee (NavPress Publishing Group)

The Stones Cry Out by Sibella Giorello (Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group)

The only book here I haven't read is the third one, which apparently is a murder mystery. But a closer look at the first two reveal that Auralia's Colors is up for TWO awards! Way to go, Jeffrey!! The other nominee here is Tosca Lee, who ran the contest that I won recently. I've only read the first chapter of her novel (definitely speculative!) and was impressed by the writing standard there as well.

So I'm definitely interested to see the results come July!

Of plot bunnies

Back in the winter one of my writing buddies Erin and I wrote a short humor piece called The Plot Bunny Purchase Agreement which was published in a recent issue of Vision: A Resource for Writers.

It seems the article is making the rounds and it occured to me that I had never posted the link here before. Today Erin came across a mention of our piece at SF/F copyeditor Deanna Hoak's blog. How cool is that?