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RPLA Showcase: Micki Browning

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Welcome to the RPLA Showcase
Royal Palm Literary Award

Each year at the Royal Palm Literary Award Banquet, authors experience the joy of earning accolades for all the hard work that is often done in the privacy of the home with little to no recognition. Our goal is to showcase the best of the best at the 2015 Royal Palm Literary Awards and provide First Place winners with a well-deserved spotlight. Not only are we recognizing extraordinary talent, but we’re giving readers an opportunity to sample excerpts from the winning stories.

2015 RPLA UNPUBLISHED BOOK OF THE YEAR:
Adrift by Micki Browning

micki browningNot only did Micki Browning win First Place in the Unpublished Mystery category, but she brought home RPLA’s top prize for unpublished manuscripts.

In the novel, Adrift, Marine scientist Mer Cavallo struggles to debunk paranormal explanations after a ghost-hunting documentary leader on her dive vanishes from a Florida Keys shipwreck.

Click the link to read a sample from Micki’s award-winning manuscript:

Excerpt from Adrift

Q & A with Author Micki Browning

Q: Where do you get your story ideas?

A: After twenty-two years working in law enforcement I’ve got more ideas than I know what to do with, so it is ironic, that Adrift drew on none of them. I moved to Key Largo after I retired and I found myself literarily surrounded by a new inspiration—the ocean. I’ve been a diver for over two decades, but a couple years ago, I became a professional divemaster. When I learned that there really were underwater ghost hunters, my mind went into overdrive.  What if dead men do tell tales…?

Q: Anything in particular about your award-winning RPLA entry that you’d like to share?

A: Echo, one of the members of the Spirited Divers, is a man of few words, however, every line of his dialogue begins with the last word or two of the person who spoke before him. I’ve yet to have anyone notice that on their own, which makes me smile.

Q: Who do you credit with inspiring your writing?

A: This is difficult to answer as I’ve been scratching out bits of story and verse since I was a child. I read fairly widely, so it’s also hard to cite just one author. That said, I can easily answer this question in terms of who inspired me to get serious about writing, and that falls squarely on the narrow shoulders of author Mandy Mikulencak. Serendipity brought us together at at time when she wanted to start a writing group in Durango, CO. That was about six years ago, and we’ve been critique partners and friends ever since.

Q: Any tips for new writers?

A: I still qualify as a newbie, so I won’t presume to have any of the answers. What I have learned is that there are several ways to get your work in the hands of agents and editors. I’ve done my fair share of querying, but it was a contest that ultimately placed Adrift in the hands of the woman who became my agent.

Thank you for sharing, Micki, and congratulations! For more about Micki Browning, visit her website: www.MickiBrowning.com
Follow Bria Burton:

Blogger at St. Pete Running Company

Award-winning author Bria Burton lives in St. Petersburg with her wonderful husband and two wild pets. They will soon welcome a baby boy (their first) in November 2017. Her fiction has appeared in over twenty anthologies and magazines. Her novelette, The Running Girls, is a 2017 Royal Palm Literary Award Finalist. Her novella, Little Angel Helper, won a 2016 RPLA. She has earned two First Place RPLAs for unpublished manuscripts. While she writes, her dog and cat do their best to distract her, which is why they star in her family-friendly short story collection, Lance & Ringo Tails. She's a blogger and customer service manager at St. Pete Running Company. As a member of the Florida Writers Association, she leads the St. Pete chapter and serves on the statewide FWA Board. She's also a member of the Alvarium Experiment, a by-invitation-only consortium of outstanding authors who created The Prometheus Saga, Return to Earth, and The Masters Reimagined anthologies. Website www.briaburton.com
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  1. Lida Sideris
    |

    What a wonderful interview – thank you, ladies! I’m very intrigued by the premise of Adrift and can’t wait to read the book!