The competition was set up by author Rowan Coleman, who launched it to coincide with the publication of her latest book, The Happy Home for Broken Hearts. Rowan's writing career started when she won a short story competition run by Company magazine. The prize included all sorts of amazing sounding things like lunch at the Ivy (Lulu was at the next table), a meeting with an agent, and lots of free books. From what I have heard about publishing there was probably also some cake. But as Rowan explains on her website:
....what winning that competition really did for me was to give me confidence to try. I've met a lot of aspiring writers in the last nine years who have asked me what my top tip for getting published is and I always say write, because if you don't write you've got no chance. But apart from that, an essential component you need is the confidence to try .She goes on to explain that this is why she launched her own competition; in order to give the same opportunities she had to another aspiring writer.
There is no way of saying this without sound incredibly cheesy, but it makes me really happy to know that there are people in the world who care enough to do things like this. And I would still say that even if a signed copy of Rowan's latest book wasn't winging its way to me by way of a prize. Hand on heart.
I had to cut the story down quite a bit to make the word limit, and I think I still prefer the slightly longer version, which I will post here in the next day or two. If you read either version, I really hope you like it.
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