The 2013 Gulfport Youth Writing Workshops and Contest has chosen the 2013 winning youth manuscripts!
Isabella Kontrick, who won best of 1st - 3rd in the 2012 competition with her award winning, Barracuda's Curse, has now earned the 2013 Best of the Winners' Circle Competition with her new action packed title, Secret of the Moonstone.
Desirae Cote returned to us this year to earn the Best Title for the 7th - 12th grade category with her very original title, Chained.
Ella Dayton-Yaeger, a new participant scooped up the Best New Title in the 4th - 6th grade category with her fantastically illustrated and creative title, The Spy.
As for the 1st - 3rd grade competition, the judges were faced with an unbreakable tie between two particularly impressive works, and so had no choice but to award the 1st - 3rd grade category Best New Title to both Shaivi Patel for Adventures of Mad Science and Eddie Kontrick for Ro-Dragon in History.
Once again, the wonderful community of Gulfport has provided an amazing opportunity for some very talented Pinellas County youth to learn and grow as writers. For this, we at the workshop series and contest give thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement, your volunteer time and your services, products, and contributions.
The winning authors will be spending the next six months with their developmental editors/writing coaches, preparing their manuscripts for the production phase of the process. They have a deadline of May 31st, 2014. Their manuscripts will then be turned into books, and go to press. Our goal is to make them available to the public no later than September 15th, 2014 at which time the Youth Writing Workshops and contest will open its doors once again for the 2014 series and contest. So stay tuned, and remember, the 2012 winning manuscripts can be found at Domain and the Gulfport Public Library, as well as on the WWW in print and eBook form, though, as always, we encourage shopping local.