Stay at home mom, Sam Mesecar, writing under the pen name of Peryn Roel from Leesburg, has won a writing mentorship in the Page Turner Awards for her middle grade fantasy book Unfolding of Time ~ The Curse.
Sponsored by ProWritingAid, the Page Turner Awards gives published authors and unpublished writers, of fiction and non-fiction from all genres, the chance to have their writing discovered by high-profile judges from the literary world.
Unfolding of Time ~ The Curse is about three siblings who discover a magic door and a key beneath an old willow, sending the m traveling through the Realms of Llalethar. When Ella is cursed by the enemy, she must fight the power of the curse and the fear that she may cause the downfall of the Realms as foretold in a Prophecy of long ago.
The Curse, the first book in Peryn’s “The Unfolding of Time" series, began when the seed of an idea came to light with the question of what would a child do if they had the ability to cause something good and something bad to happen each day.
Sam began writing her ideas down into a story and reading it to her family at the dinner table. Their response was so encouraging that she continued to write, and write, and write. Eventually, she had 110,000 words written — mostly on her smartphone because it was always with her — and a saga was born.
The Curse is a story of three siblings, Jack, Ella, and Lily and the journey they embark on through the Realms of Llalethar. Although her characters are created from her imagination, she has added personality traits from different family members to her characters to give them more depth — and sometimes makes for a good laugh.
The original idea and story have evolved over time and Sam has enjoyed every moment developing her characters, storyline, and realms in which the adventure unfolds. But, to keep it real there were days where she seriously questioned herself as a writer. On those days the laptop was set aside, and she would go for a long ramble in the hills around her home.
Sam said: “The Page Turner Awards has afforded me an opportunity to take my story to the next level and encouraged me to continue my writing. As the name implies, the competition is looking to identify the writers best able to 'hook' the reader right from the start. This has helped me refine my writing and be sure every word counts. If I win, I will be humbled, honored, and excited beyond words. Winning this award will help me bring my story to a much larger audience.”
Ann said: “As I have worked with several American authors, I can offer Peryn the necessary resources and guidance to improve her writing skills further. I also enjoyed the story she submitted and could see the potential of it in the future.”
Next year’s Page Turner Awards already has several literary agents and publishers as judges who are actively seeking writers to publish from the entries.
The judges also include influencers in the publishing industry, plus an audiobook production company giving published authors the chance to get their eBook and printed books into audiobooks.
Success stories from this year’s awards include three writers winning literary representation, six writers winning a writing mentorship, five writers winning a publishing contract and thirteen independent authors winning an audiobook production.
Find out more about The Page Turner Awards: https://pageturnerawards.com. Submissions for 2021 will open on the 1st of January 2021.
