E.B. White was right on the money when he wrote that “it is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.”

We are so pleased and honored to be among the winners of the Writer’s Digest 89th annual writing competition!

Our entry, Dead Reckoning, placed second in the genre short story category–the category for every work of adult fiction that didn’t fall under the ‘mainstream/literary fiction’ category. That meant that mystery, romance, etc, all went in one big pot for this competition, so we couldn’t be more pleased about how well the story was received!

In Dead Reckoning, the opening chapter of the sequel to our debut novel Still Life, a group of hikers and geocachers stumble across a terrible secret that has been hidden for decades deep in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains. It was great fun to write, and as we both continue to work on the story we can’t wait to see how it all comes together!

The contest team at Writer’s Digest has been an absolute pleasure to work with, and we highly recommend not just the competition, but the website and magazine in general as a terrific writing resource and source of daily inspiration! We look forward to competing again, possibly in the other competitions that they run throughout the year.

According to the contest team, across the nine categories of the competition, there were over 4,000 entries–so to place second in the genre category is quite the achievement! To find more details about the annual writing competition, follow this link, or visit writersdigest.com.

Here is the winner graphic that we have been encouraged to use to promote our win!

Look for our story title, along with the other winners, in the November/December issue of Writer’s Digest, celebrating 100 years of the magazine’s history! Wow!