"The RISING STAR Award contestants have proven once again the depth and breadth of the women's fiction genre, from contemporary to historical, mainstream to literary, realistic to paranormal, and everything in between," said MM Finck, RISING STAR Award Chair. “My favorite email from this award season came from one of our agent-judges. ‘Gimme, gimme!’ Five requests for full manuscripts were made before the final results were even tallied.”
Christine Adler, WFWA President, said, “Each year, the caliber of writing submitted to the Award gets better. It’s a testament to the quality of women’s fiction that the RISING STAR has become known for, and we’re proud to offer this opportunity to writers.”
The WFWA Rising Star Award is open to all unpublished manuscripts of women’s fiction, regardless of the authors’ membership in WFWA. Each entry consists of the first 35 pages of the manuscript and a synopsis. A maximum of 75 entries were initially assessed and scored by three published authors of women’s fiction each. The five top scoring manuscripts moved to the final round where they were judged by literary agents actively acquiring women’s fiction. The winners were announced at the 2018 WFWA Retreat Awards Dinner.
“I want to thank WFWA and the judges for their time and feedback. I’m so honored to receive this award,” said Shelby Riley, the 2018 RISING STAR Award winner.
WFWA expresses its gratitude to the 2018 Final round judges, in alphabetical order:
Kerry D’Agostino, Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Sonali Chanchani, Folio Literary
Cherise Fisher, Wendy Sherman Associates, Inc. Literary Management
Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media Group Literary Agency
Abby Saul, The Lark Group
Ann Leslie Tuttle, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC
Further details of the Rising Star Award are at: http://womensfictionwriters.org/Rising_Star_Award
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