Beth Barany from Oakland, United States, has has won a publishing contract and audiobook production from Spectrum Audiobooks in the Page Turner eBook Award, for her Sci-Fi Mystery novel Into The Black.
Beth entered the Page Turner Awards, where published and unpublished fiction and non-fiction writers of all genres can enter their writing to get discovered by high-profile judges from the literary world.
Into The Black is about Janey McCallister, a lead investigator at Bijoux de L’Étoile (a high-end casino orbiting Earth), who needs to solve a priceless gem theft. When the case escalates to murder, Janey must rely on her new team and trust the mysterious insurance investigator Orlando Valdez before the killer escapes into the black.
Beth Barany was inspired to explore the question of what might be the divide between the rich and the poor in the future if people could more easily self-govern. That led her to design a world about 100 years from now, with two very different types of economies.
To examine these issues from a global view, she set her story on a space station casino in high-earth orbit where people from around the globe would clash. Into these clashes, she placed a strong and complex female investigator to solve difficult cases while navigating class friction.
Beth wanted to write about a character that had a physical difference that set her apart from others, as she's had one all her life. Beth was born without all her fingers; she does have three normal looking and function fingers. She had multiple hand surgeries as a child to help her have more function. Even without all her fingers, Beth was a percussionist in high school and played drums in her first semester in the UC Berkeley marching band. Beth can type and hand write, has learned to knit, crotchet, and sew, and does all the normal activities of living a daily life.
In Into The Black, Janey Mccallister has a different kind of disability -- a mechanical eye. In the futuristic world of this story, her eye is part of her brain-computer interface and she uses it in her work as a detective to solve mysteries. Instead of something Janey was born with, she had an accident as a young teen and had to learn to adjust to her new eye, which wasn't always easy.
Beth was inspired to give Janey a disability because of her own life, and because Beth's father was born blind in one eye.
When not writing fiction novels, Beth runs an online school for fiction writers. She said, “The Page Turner Awards is a great opportunity for writers, published and unpublished, to raise the visibility of their books. This unique writing contest endorses the strong female-centric story that looks at what humanity could become. I’m thrilled to have won this fantastic publishing prize!”
The Page Turner Awards, sponsored by ProWritingAid, 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.
Kelly Rinne from Spectrum Audiobooks judged the eBook Award and was immediately captured by the narrative in Into The Black and offered Beth a publishing and audiobook production.
Read more about Beth and her eBook: https://pageturnerawards.com/ebook-award-finalists/beth-barany
Judges are carefully selected literary agents and publishers who are looking for writers to represent and publish, plus influencers in the publishing industry.
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.
