( Added: June 29, 2009 ) - Award-winning author and publishing consultant Laine Cunningham is teaming up with The Blotter literary magazine to launch a new writing contest. Awards include cash prizes totaling $625 the first year and books donated by various authors. The award offers support, recognition and financial assistance to authors on the long road to publication.

Cunningham has wanted to launch the contest for a number of years. The administrative effort was beyond her ability to handle alone. While talking with Garrison Somers, Senior Editor of The Blotter literary magazine, they agreed that fiction writers don’t get much support these days. She asked if the magazine could help organize the contest.

Somers took the idea to Martin Smith, the magazine’s publisher. Smith immediately got on board. He offered to set aside at least one edition of the magazine’s print version to publish excerpts from the winning manuscripts. He also dedicated at least one web edition to the winners and is considering ways to publish the finalists. Meanwhile Somers rounded up three preliminary judges, each of whom claim experience in different areas of publishing. The Laine Cunningham Novel Award is now officially underway.

Cunningham is sponsoring the cash prizes and will be the final judge. She will select winners from ten to fifteen finalists sent forward after the preliminary round. The first-place winner will receive $500. Second place will receive $125. Cunningham is dedicated to providing more money for these prizes in coming years and will add cash prizes for third place and honorable mention. “It’s important that novelists are encouraged to continue along what is a very difficult path,” she says.

First through third place winners will also receive a “library” of books donated by authors from around the nation, including Cunningham. Any published authors wishing to donate a book should contact Cunningham directly. All winners will receive certificates of achievement from the magazine.

Both Cunningham and Somers are dedicated to helping authors. Both are novelists and understand that the long months of working alone on a single project can wear down passion and inspiration. The contest is structured to provide material support as well as validation from two well-respected sources: an award-winning author and a literary nonprofit magazine.

Cunningham knows firsthand how important winning a contest can be. After receiving the prestigious James Jones Literary Society’s fellowship for her first novel, Message Stick, agents from the U.S. and overseas began calling her. She signed with a long-standing agent who represented Norman Mailer and Carl Sagan. When Message Stick later won the national Hackney Literary Award, the same pattern repeated itself.

Entries to the first Laine Cunningham Novel Award contest will be accepted between October, 2009 and January, 2010. Any book-length work of fiction is eligible, including novellas. Submission details will be available in October so check www.LaineCunningham.com then. Winners will be announced in May, 2010. Entry fees will be used by The Blotter to offset administrative costs of the contest and to support the nonprofit magazine.

Cunningham is available as a keynote speaker on various topics dealing with writing, publishing, and her books. For the past fifteen years, she has worked as a publishing industry consultant. She has been quoted on CNN Money, MSNBC, multiple newspapers with readerships over a million, and international media. She has also been a guest on multiple radio shows and TV programs to talk about writing and publishing. She can be reached at 336-267-6572.