Applying to the Page Turner Awards has been eye-opening for me. The experience has been far more than simply launching a few pages of my precious baby into a void and hoping an invisible body likes my stuff enough to give me a thumbs-up. The Page Turner Awards is a celebration and a synthesis of international successful and debut writers, judges, readers, mentors and publishers. It draws on the agencies and companies and networks that all feed into the industry, from book-clubs to editorial systems to software developers. The Awards provides mechanisms for hopeful writers around the world, of all ages, and at any stage in their journey, to connect and share, and mostly to feel excited about the process.
I have submitted samples of my work to other awards and - after my payment has been accepted - promptly receive a do-not-reply email warning me I will likely never hear anything from them again unless I am a winner, and that it will be months and months away before I can even begin to assume I haven't succeeded. In stark contrast, the team at Page Turner Awards have emailed updates and notices and advice consistently since first applying. It makes me feel noticed. I feel valued. I feel someone might have actually read my submission and seen my name. As a debut novelist, this level of interaction is tremendously affirming and does the industry a great service, by being a welcoming usher into a rather intimidating and nail-bitingly elusive domain.
Thank you Page Turner team. Thank you for upholding all the positive aspects of literature and creativity, for uniting groups, and for generating a kind of on-line gala event where the suspenseful built to the ultimate awards is conveyed so optimistically I feel genuine excitement for everyone involved.
Good luck to everyone who submitted; thank you to the judges and the readers and everyone behind the scenes who are taking so much trouble, and in particular, thank you to the Page Turner team for a professional and brilliant Awards process. I openly recommend it to any writer, and I will almost certainly try again in the future.
- Vanessa Croft, submitter to the Writing Award
