David Lea, from Twyford, Winchester, UK was highly commended for his writing in the Page Turner Awards. This was announced at a glittering online ceremony, where Paul Michael Glaser, from Starsky and Hutch fame, was a special guest to announce the winners.
The Page Turner Awards, sponsored by ProWritingAid and Campfire, offers authors, writers, and screenwriters the chance to enter the first 10 pages of their writing project, where a judging panel of literary experts and film producers will read the work.
Lea is a retired teacher, who has lived and worked in the county for forty years.
His submission, Home To Roost, is about a young British-Indian woman who regrets leaving a stellar career in the City to join the police. Although a significant role in a murder investigation rekindles her enthusiasm, her ethics, loyalty, and self-image are rechallenged when her exceptional skills give her the chance to alter the course of history.
Lea began to write this story, having won a Hampshire Writers' Society competition with the synopsis of a police procedural set on a chicken farm in the Candovers district of the county.
The writer joined the Hampshire Writers' Society ten years ago and then a writers' group in Basingstoke in a quest to make some sense of retirement after a minor stroke.
Lea said, “Page Turner Awards has made me take myself seriously as a writer. Going through the rounds from finalist to longlist to shortlist concentrated the mind wonderfully. The fact that people other than my wife and friends in writers' groups read my work and liked it boosted confidence and focused my mind. Being highly commended is a high point in my writing career so far.”
This year, aspiring writers walked off the red carpet with life-changing prizes. One new unpublished writer won literary agency representation, while a screenwriter won literary management. Another new writer won a publishing deal, seven independent authors won an audiobook production from Spectrum Audiobooks, plus one other won a publishing package (including an edit, book cover and book trailer), and another author won a book adaptation.
The Page Turner Awards winners and Highly Commended writers can be found here:
https://pageturnerawards.com/2021-winners
Submissions for the 2022 Awards will open in January 2022. Find out how you too can enter your writing into The Page Turner Awards: https://pageturnerawards.com.
