Final Judges

    

            Lighthouse Book Awards

  Unpublished Novel

   Competition

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

Barbara Moore is the acquiring editor for Midnight Ink, an imprint featuring mysteries that she recently helped launch for Llewellyn Publications. Barbara, who has been involved in publishing since the third grade when she served as editor for her elementary school’s weekly newsletter, will be the final judge in the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category. You can see some of her new acquisitions at 

Midnight Ink publishes suspenseful tales of almost all types. Barbara does enjoy all genres as long as the characters are interesting, the writing polished and fresh, and the story either unique or uniquely told.

Fiction – General

Julie Doughty is an acquiring editor for     , an imprint of the Penguin Group of publishers.  She specializes in fiction, particularly commercial women's fiction, historical fiction, and literary fiction.  Recent publications include Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert, The Liar's Diary by Patry Francis, The Cinderella Pact by Sarah Strohmeyer, Brethren by Robyn Young, the New York Times bestseller Chasing Destiny by Eric Jerome Dickey, and the award-winning debut novel Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara.  In a previous position at Vintage Books she worked on the paperbacks of authors such as Philip Roth, Haruki Murakami, John Berendt, and Ann Packer.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Claire Eddy is a Senior Editor at             , the largest publisher of science fiction in the world, and has been with the company for over twenty years.

She writes: I started out editing science fiction and fantasy early in my career and have had the pleasure of working with such authors as Orson Scott Card, Gordon R. Dickson, Jane Yolen, Fred Saberhagen, and Jack Vance.  I have also been fortunate enough to be able to bring out such newcomers to the fantasy scene as Jacqueline Carey, Sara Doulgass and Juliet Marillier. 

Young Adult

Vicky Holifield, a former teacher of middle and high school students, has been a member of the   staff in Atlanta for more than fifteen years. For the past eleven years she has acquired and edited fiction and nonfiction titles for preschool, elementary, middle-grade, and YA audiences. She also works closely with the production department in the development of picture books and jackets.

A record number of submissiones were entered into this year's Lighthouse Book Awards Competition for unpublished novels. In its second year, the competition expanded to four categories of fiction: Mysteries/Suspense/Thrillers, Fiction-General, Young Adult, and Science Fiction/Fantasy.

Each entry was evaluated by two preliminary judges, scores totaled  and three finalists in each category will move forward. The individuals below act as the final judges and will rank the finalists in their winning order. These winners will be announced during the luncheon session at the May 17 conference.

Many thanks to everyone who submitted entries, to our much-appreciated preliminary judges, to our editors and finally to our hard-working comptetition coordinator Judy Connolly.