Katrina Wiggins from Abbotsford, BC, Canada has been shortlisted for the Page Turner Awards eBook Award for her Young Adult novel, Blind the Eyes.
Katrina, who writes under the pen name of K.A. Wiggins is a Vancouver-born Canadian creative writing coach.
Katrina entered the Page Turner Awards, where published authors and unpublished writers of fiction and non-fiction across all genres can enter their writing to get discovered by high-profile judges from the literary world.
Blind the Eyes is about the climate crisis arriving with monsters. Too bad the one girl who could have stopped them is dead.
Katrina set out to write escapist teen fantasy as a chance of pace from her career in marketing and business analysis. Instead, what came out was the climate apocalypse, folkloric soul-sucking monsters, haunted nightmares, and repressive authoritarian regimes staffed by traumatized workers
Katrina said, “It's always encouraging to have your work recognized! The Page Turner Awards have proven to be a wonderful way to connect with new readers, and I'm especially looking forward to seeing the amazing new books coming out of their writing award!”
Vancouver and other BC locations feature large in K.A. Wiggins' fiction for good reason—her family has over four generations of history in Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and the Cariboo-Chilcotin regions.
Inspired by Irish-Canadian author O.R. Melling's "The Book of Dreams" and J.R.R. Tolkien's mission to nurture national identity through folklore, Katrina makes a point of choosing local settings for her speculative fiction to help the next generation of readers look beyond colonial visions of UK-centric folklore and find magic at home in Canada and around the world.
Katrina said: “It's such an unexpected honour to have my work recognized by the Page Turner Awards judges! I look forward to reaching new readers and hope this achievement opens up further opportunity for women horror writers and Canadian fantasy stories!”
Katrina had an early start in creative writing through a student work placement with Penny Lett of the Chilliwack Progress Newspaper, and recognition in local writing contests including a first place in The Law Society of British Columbia's 2004 Law Week Short Story Contest.
A second opportunity came from the Fraser Valley Regional Library's “It's Happening Here” Teen Writing Contest in the same year. Since then Katrina plays her part in encouraging the next generation of young writers through literary festivals, panels, and creative writing workshops with such organizations as The ORCHIDS Children's Literature Fest (Mumbai, 2019) and the Creative Writing for Children Society (Vancouver, 2020).
The Page Turner Awards, sponsored by ProWritingAid, gives writers and authors the chance to enter unpublished or published fiction and non-fiction books, where a group of literary agents and publishers will read the work.
Read more about Katrina’s book:
https://pageturnerawards.com/ebook-award-finalists/ka-wiggins
Founder of Page Turner Awards and award-winning novelist, Paula Wynne said: “There are writers from all walks of life, from manual laborers to academics. All with stories to tell, most of them heart-warming and moving. We’re proud that our Awards celebrates excellent writing and helps writers and authors to get their stories discovered.”
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.
