Welcome to the RPLA Showcase
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 2016 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.
2016 Unpublished Humor/Satire (fiction)
Ragtime Dudes in a Thin Place by Richard Gartee
Richard Gartee won First Place in the Unpublished Humor/Satire (fiction) category. In Ragtime Dudes in a Thin Place, Ragtime is in, Victorians are out, and free love is a way of life for three New York dandies opening an emporium in 1904 Taos, NM.
Click the link to read a sample:
Excerpt from Ragtime Dudes in a Thin Place
Q & A with Richard Gartee
Q: Where do you get your story ideas?
A: Ideas can appear anywhere, anytime. I keep a small notebook with me for that reason. But the stories that draw me to commit a year or two of writing/editing effort seem to arise instantly from a confluence of concepts from two or three sources encountered within a short interval. A creative spark ignites the ideas and right away I have an almost fully formed story outline. For example, I saw a PBS documentary connecting climate change to the fall of Camelot. The next day I heard Leonard Nimoy tell how Guinevere sent Lancelot away to become a religious hermit, and Sir Thomas Malory’s description of Lancelot achieving a state of Grace during his hermitage. In a flash, the storyline of my first novel, Lancelot’s Grail, formed: Defamed knight attains the Grail during his solitude, but now rejected by his once-adoring public, with whom is he obligated to share his discovery?
Q: Anything in particular about your award-winning RPLA entry that you’d like to share?
A: As I said above, I like stories where different ideas converge. Ragtime Dudes In A Thin Place, is a period novel with a humorous bent set in 1904 Taos, NM. It is the time of the St. Louis World’s Fair, impressionist art, women’s suffrage/liberation, ragtime music, and free love. The Victorian era has ended and a flurry of modern invention makes it seem like anything will be possible. New Mexico was one of two western territories not yet a state. Taos was both an ancient mystical area for the natives and the future home of an arts colony. The lax social mores of the west and three New Yorkers belief they are bringing eastern culture to Taos create humorous situations.
Q: Who do you credit with inspiring your writing?
A: Like most authors, I enjoy reading as well as writing. My interests span a variety of genres and authors, from Alan Ginsburg, Herman Hesse, and Yogananda, to Robert Heinlein, Robert B. Parker, and Helen Simonson.
Q: Any tips for new writers?
A: Whether you write fiction by constructing plot outlines and character arcs or write by the seat of your pants, keeping yourself in your seat is key. Write every day. Don’t talk about your story until you’ve written it; telling it makes your mind think it’s done creating. Get a professional editor and some good beta readers.
Thank you for sharing, Richard, and congratulations! Visit his website: www.gartee.com
A message about supporting literacy in Florida:
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We could significantly fund the literacy efforts of our organization. No money out of your pockets…just some invested time to set this up.
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