My First Book Award

One of the highlights of 2025 is that I sent in my first book, Nazar's Journey, to be considered for the novella category of the 2025 Angel Book Contest, which is run by the Faith and Fellowship Book Festival, here in the Midwest. I had participated in their online Festival in 2024, when I was able to share about my book, along with some other more seasoned authors. You can find this zoom meeting on the media page of my website nazarsjourney.com. As the certificate shows, I found out in November that I won second place, which I was very happy about. The judges are professionals who don't know me. Since I had the opportunity to see their remarks after the awards were announced, one of them commented that the book kept him engaged from the beginning to the end. That, in itself, was very important to me, firstly, that the judges are complete strangers with no obligation to say anything positive about my book, and secondly, because they confirmed that the pacing of the book works so that the reader remains engaged and interested to reach the ending. The ending of this first book is particularly important to me. Joseph Pearce, who wrote the intro, called the ending a "eucatastrophe," borrowing a term from Tolkien, so, if you don't reach the end and get bored with the book, you miss everything. When one is immersed in writing a book of any size and shape, putting together all the details and components, one never knows what the feeling of the read will be like for the person who encounters the story for the first time.