2018 WOTY and IWOTY Finalists!
Looking forward to learning more about the Writer of the Year (WOTY) and Independent Writer of the Year (IWOTY) finalists?? Coming this month on the blog – learn more about each of the finalists in their author interviews! Stay tuned! Voting for WOTY and IWOTY starts in May!
Curtis Craddock (WOTY Finalist) was born in the wrong century and quite possibly on the wrong planet. He should have been born in a world where gallant heroes regularly vanquish dire and despicable foes, where friendship, romance, wit, and courage are the foundations of culture and civilization, and where adventure beckons from every shadow.
Instead, he was born on Earth and lives in a world bounded by bureaucracy, hemmed in by cynicism, and governed by the dull necessity of earning a wage. An exile in this world, he is a biographer of friends he’s never met, a chronicler of events that never happened, and a cartographer of places that never were.
Given that the mundane world supplies a dearth of oddly progressive kingdoms to be saved, he spends his time saving cats, dogs, and the occasional bird of prey. By day, he teaches Computer Information Systems classes to offenders at a correctional facility. By night, he puts on his writer’s cap, the broad-brimmed one with a feather, and, into the prison walls of reality, etches defiant words of legend.
His debut novel An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors was released by Tor in August 2017
Sue Duff (IWOTY Finalist) is the award-winning, bestselling author of the fantasy/scifi series The Weir Chronicles and has recently released Dim the Lights, the final book in her epic five-novel series. In addition to managing her own publishing house, CrossWinds Publishing, she is a contributing author of speculative fiction short stories with the award-winning authors at Wicked Ink Books. The group of Colorado women writers have published two anthologies, TICK TOCK: Seven Tales of Time, and OFF BEAT: Nine Spins on Song, both of which have won the coveted EVVY Awards through the Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA). Their third anthology will be available October 2018. The RMFW 2018 Anthology Committee recognized Sue when they selected her short story, Adrift, for this year’s anthology, False Faces.
When not saving the world one page at a time, Sue works as a speech therapist in Denver Public Schools, specializing in assistive technology support for low cognitive, severe needs and autism students. She is honored and thrilled to be recognized alongside Bernadette Marie and Corinne O’Flynn for the 2018 IWOTY. For additional information, check her out at www.sueduff.com, follower her on Facebook at Sue Duff–Writer, on Twitter at sueduff55, and on Instagram at sueduffauthor.
Award-wi
nning journalist Gwen Florio (WOTY Finalist) has covered stories ranging from the shooting at Columbine High School to the glitz of the Miss America pageant and the more practical Miss Navajo contest, whose participants slaughter and cook a sheep. She’s reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, as well as Lost Springs, Wyoming (population three). She turned to fiction in 2013 with the publication of her first novel, Montana, which won the Pinckley Prize for Debut Crime Fiction and a High Plains Book Award. Under the Shadows (Midnight Ink, March 2018) is the fifth novel in the Lola Wicks series, termed “gutsy” by the New York Times. She turned to literary fiction with Silent Hearts (Atria, July 2018), a novel set in Afghanistan. She’s the city editor of the Missoulian newspaper in Missoula, Montana, where she lives with her partner, Scott, and an exuberant, manuscript-chewing bird dog named Nell.
Corinne O’Flynn (IWOTY Finalist) is a USA Today bestselling author of The Expatriates fantasy-adventure series featuring SONG OF THE SENDING and PROMISE OF THE SCHOLAR, the Witches of Tower Hill paranormal suspense series featuring the award-winning GHOSTS OF WITCHES PAST, the Aumahnee Prophecy urban fantasy series which she co-writes with RMFW member Lisa Manifold, and the Half Moon Girls murder-mystery series. She is also a publisher with Wicked Ink Books, whose titles include the award-winning anthologies TICK TOCK: Seven Tales of Time and OFF BEAT: Nine Spins on Song. Look for a new anthology from Wicked Ink Books in the Fall 2018, and the final installment of The Expatriates series, SOUL OF THE SWORD, this summer.
Corinne is a native New Yorker living in Colorado who wouldn’t trade life in the Rockies for anything. She considers RMFW her writing home. She got involved in RMFW after attending her first conference and has served on the board of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers since as Technology Co-Chair, Conference Chair, and Retreat Chair, as well as helping out in various roles over the years.
Corinne is the founder and Executive Director of Rowan Tree Foundation, a local non-profit dedicated to providing support to bereaved families after the death of a child. She is a self-proclaimed scone aficionado, a professional napper, and she has an entire section of her kitchen devoted to tea. When not working on her author business, she can be found hanging with her husband and their four kids, playing board games, attending live music and stage performances, knitting, reading, or binge watching some fabulous shows—all while sipping tea!
Bestselling Author Bernadette Marie (IWOTY Finalist) is known for building families readers want to be part of. Her series The Keller Family has graced bestseller charts since its release in 2011. Since then she has authored and published over thirty books. The married mother of five sons promises romances with a Happily Ever After always…and says she can write it because she lives it.
Obsessed with writing since the age of 12, Bernadette Marie officially started her journey as an author in 2007 when she finalized a manuscript she’d been writing for 22 years, shelved it, and wrote 12 more books that year. In 2009 she was contracted with a small publisher in a deal that would eventually go bad. From that experience, she knew she could take control of her career and that’s what she did.
A chronic entrepreneur since opening her first salon at the age of twenty, Bernadette Marie established her own publishing house in 2011, 5 Prince Publishing, so that she could publish the books she liked to write and help make the dreams of other aspiring authors come true too. Believing there is a place for the fresh author’s voice, she not only publishes but coaches others who wish to publish their work independently. Bernadette Marie is also the CEO of Illumination Author Events and Services offering smaller intimate author/reader events as well as author services.
Mandy Mikulencak (WOTY Finalist) has been a writer her entire working life. First, as a newspaper reporter, then as an editor and PR specialist in the nonprofit sector and for the UN. She is the author of two novels of historical fiction: The Last Suppers (Kensington, December 2017), which is set in 1950s Louisiana; and Forgiveness Road (Kensington, March 2019), which is set in 1970s Mississippi. Her first novel, Burn Girl, garnered a 2016 Westchester Fiction Award for young adult literature. She currently resides in Durango, CO, with her husband, Andy. In her spare time, Mandy loves to hike and bake, the former necessary because of the latter. Readers can visit her website at www.mandymikulencak.com.