Eludia Award Long List and Winner Announced

We’re excited to name the winner of the most recent round of our Eludia Award: Elisabeth Bell Carroll of Framingham, Massachusetts, for her fascinating dual-time novel, Agnès & Oscara.

The Eludia Award is a first-book award, offered to a woman writer, age forty and above, for a work of fiction, either a novel or collection of stories. We are also pleased to announce the semi-finalists and finalists below and wish to congratulate everyone. As ever, we are in awe of the enormity of talent we receive; and we are grateful to every writer who has submitted to this award.

The next round of submissions for the Eludia Award will deadline April 1, 2024. More details about The Eludia Award, and its guidelines can be read here on our blog, and here, on the Submittable page.

The semi-finalists and finalists are as follows:

Semi finalists

Adams, Kate, Mountain View, California, Scattered Pieces

Alderton, Ellen, Washington, D.C., Changing of the Guard

Alpha, Karen, Corning, New York, ZULU And Other Stories

Bryan, Cristina, Durham, North Carolina, Henricus

Carter, Thatcher, Riverside, California, Razed

Carroll, Elisabeth Bell, Framingham, Massachusetts, Agnès & Oscara

Chilton, Lora, Memphis, Tennessee, Massacre in 1666

Clayton, Julia, Southport, Merseyside, England, Tinted Venus

Colvin, Rebecca, Gastonia, North Carolina, A Beautiful Symmetry

Crawley, Kathryn, Greensboro, North Carolina, The Fetch of the Wind

Debling, Heather, Stratford, Ontario, Canada, Count Your Blessings: Stories

De Gregorio, Karen, Sherman Oaks, California, The Carnaval Kara Never Danced

Dhavan, Lucinda, Concord, Massachusetts, A Part of It All

Feighan, Philomena, Westborough, Massachusetts, Long Sleeps the Summer in the Seeds

Gorelova, Linda, Columbus, Ohio, The Romanovs Wish You Health in the New Year

Gray, Katrine, El Sobrante, California, Crescent Lane

Gurman, Diana, Los Angeles, My Ghost and Other Stories

James, Frannie, Seattle, Washington, The Sylvan Hotel, a Seattle Story

Johnson, Lulu, Dillard, Georgia, Pandora’s Portrait

Juchniewicz, Melissa, Chester, New Hampshire, Like Dust

Kirkham, Phebe, Woodside, New York, The Last of the Winters

Lawhorn, Barbara, Macomb, Illinois, Born Again

Lownds, Joan, Naugatuck, Connecticut, What’s Wrong with Your Voice?

Marin, Robin Luce, Brooklyn, New York, Old Scores

Martinez, Suzanne, Brooklyn, New York, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass

May, Amber, Sherwood, Arizona, Destiny Keeper

Moriarty, Marilyn, Roanoke, Virginia, Flight Is the Name of a Goddess

Neville, Sophie, Lymington, Hampshire, UK, Love Is For The Brave

O’Brien, Colleen, East Glacier, Montana, Baited

Oxnard, K.W., Savannah, Georgia, The Leg in Question

Palmer, Wendy, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, Sphere of Her Own

Payne, Martha, Atlanta, Georgia, Apple Doll

Ruby, Michele, Louisville, Kentucky, Stage Presence

Smith, Jessica, Lewiston, Maine, That Kind of Trouble Isn’t This Kind of Trouble

Spasser, Connie Corzilius, Augusta, Georgia, Shimmer and Give: Stories

Taugher, Mary, San Francisco, California, What Mercy

Troisi, Gina, Eliot, Maine, After the Rush

Webb, Susan, Citrus Heights, California, Figments

Whouley, Kate, Centerville, Massachusetts, The Maestro and Her Protégé

Wood, Mary, Eugene, Oregon, The Blue Edge

Yackzan, Dawn, Davis, California, Leap Frog

Finalists

Adams, Kate, Mountain View, California, Scattered Pieces

Alderton, Ellen, Washington, D.C., Changing of the Guard

Bryan, Cristina, Durham, North Carolina, Henricus

Carroll, Elisabeth Bell, Framingham, Massachusetts, Agnès & Oscara

Chilton, Lora, Memphis, Tennessee, Massacre in 1666

Clayton, Julia, Southport, Merseyside, England, Tinted Venus

Crawley, Kathryn, Greensboro, North Carolina, The Fetch of the Wind

Debling, Heather, Stratford, Ontario, Canada, Count Your Blessings: Stories

Gorelova, Linda, Columbus, Ohio, The Romanovs Wish You Health in the New Year

Gray, Katrine, El Sobrante, California, Crescent Lane

Gurman, Diana, Los Angeles, My Ghost and Other Stories

Johnson, Lulu, Dillard, Georgia, Pandora’s Portrait

May, Amber, Sherwood, Arizona, Destiny Keeper

Moriarty, Marilyn, Roanoke, Virginia, Flight Is the Name of a Goddess

O’Brien, Colleen, East Glacier, Montana, Baited

Oxnard, K.W., Savannah, Georgia, The Leg in Question

Payne, Martha, Atlanta, Georgia, Apple Doll

Spasser, Connie Corzilius, Augusta, Georgia, Shimmer and Give: Stories

Whouley, Kate, Centerville, Massachusetts, The Maestro and Her Protégé

Winner

Carroll, Elisabeth Bell, Framingham, Massachusetts, Agnès & Oscara

Again, we would like to express our undying appreciation and respect for all who submitted to The Eludia Award. Thank you for your patience, and for entrusting your work to us. We love and honor each and every one of you!

Celebrating the Launch of Kings Row by Jeffrey Voccola

Kings Row by Jeffrey Voccola

The inaugural winner of our Blue Mountain Novel Award, Kings Row by Jeffrey Voccola has been launched, published by our Hidden River Press imprint.

Description:
Joel Martin is a twenty-four year old construction worker who lives with his mother and struggles to provide for his four year old son. Longing to break free from the bleak confines of Langley, Pennsylvania, the dried-up industrial town where he has lived his entire life, he commits a series of burglaries with his brother, Derek, in the hope of finding more. Faced with legal troubles, problems with his ex, and the possibility of being separated from his son, Joel begins to unravel, and the unthinkable occurs when his life intersects with Christopher Roche, a freshman at Waylan University. Kings Row explores class disparities as they exist today and the tragic events that inevitably unfold when people are driven by anger and resentment. Rich in character and carefully observed, Kings Row is a gripping story of two Americas growing farther apart.

Praise For Kings Row

“In the utterly absorbing Kings Row, Jeffrey Voccola shows himself to be a master of the faultlines of class and of all the ways, large and small, in which people hurt each other. I couldn’t stop turning the pages of this suspenseful novel. Kings Row is a stellar debut.” –Margot Livesey, author of Mercury and The House on Fortune Street

“This beautifully-paced, eloquent and suspenseful novel is full of persuasive, sharply observed psychology, sociology, and topology, and an honest voicing of working class people, male and female….Voccola writes with dead-pan lyricism, an attentive ear, and generous heart.” –DeWitt Henry, author of Sweet Marjoram and co-founder of Ploughshares

“From its masterful opening chapter on, Kings Row captures the divides and resentments that have brought us to this moment in America. This novel is a deep study of people unsure of their positions in their personal lives and in the larger sphere of change. Voccola writes beautifully and compassionately, even about tragedy.” –Tim Parrish, author of Fear and What Follows: The Violent Education of a Christian Racist, A Memoir

Kings Row masterfully deconstructs a killing deeply emblematic of the class and race issues that plague our time. With lyrical, heart-piercing realism, Jeffrey Voccola evokes our deepest compassion for these ill-fated characters, showing us ourselves reflected in college students struggling to belong, in displaced working class communities. Provocative and suspenseful, Kings Row introduces an exciting new writer to watch.” –Wayne Harrison, author of The Spark and the Drive and Wrench and Other Stories

Kings Row can be purchased at
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Powell’s
BookShop.org

The Blue Mountain Award is offered yearly. The next cycle of submissions opens August 30, 2020 and deadlines March 31, 2020. Please see the guidelines.

Jeffrey is available for readings, conferences, interviews and other events. To discuss options, please contact us. More information about Jeffrey, and a link to a live reading from Kings Row can be found here.