Saturday, February 20, 2010

Time for the Gold Medal winners!

It’s time to award those Olympic gold medals to folks who slog through what can be one of the most discouraging sports of all….WRITING! So here’s Dana Mentink’s take on the gold medal winners in the Mystery, Romance and Christian Fiction genres.
And the Gold Medal in Romance goes to…Barbara Cartland. Before her death she authored over 700 books! Seven hundred? I’m happy to be publishing number eight! After starting out as a gossip columnist, she went full tilt into the romance arena and in addition to her published words she left over 160 unpublished manuscripts. Can you imagine? Now THAT’S medal worthy!
And Gold Medal in Mystery goes to…Dick Francis. This was a tricky one but the best-selling British writer wrote 42 novels, incorporating his own life experiences as a jockey. A favorite with the Queen’s mother, he was made a Commander of the British Empire. He wrote all his stories out longhand and his faithful wife read, edited and transferred them to the computer. His son Felix once said his parents were like “Siamese twins conjoined at the pencil.”
And finally in the area of Christian Fiction, the gold medal goes to… Jerry Jenkins. Though I struggled with this category as there are so many inspirational authors I love (a nod to Jan Karon here) Jenkins really put Christian Fiction on the map when his Left Behind series sold more than 70,000,000 copies. His recent novel Riven, will be shot as a movie this year.
So those are the gold medal awards presented by this judge. Your turn! Who would YOU award gold medals to in the writing world?

2 comments:

Pamela Tracy said...

Wow, Dana, great post. My romance gold would probably have to go to Nora Roberts.
My mystery gold would go to Sue Grafton.
And, my inspirational gold would go to Jeanette Oake.

Dana Mentink said...

Great choices! All deserving of medals, surely.