Former Keys Resident Wins Clay Reynolds Novella Competition Book to Launch September 21st

Montpelier, Vt. – Author Chelsea Catherine has won the 2017 Clay Reynolds novella competition, hosted by Sam Houston State University in Texas. Her winning entry, “Blindsided,” will publish on September 21st. “Blindsided” was written and set in the Florida Keys, and follows Eli as she leads Carla, a local real estate agent, through an election for Key West city mayor.

The author graduated from Rutgers University in New Jersey and attended the University of Tampa for graduate school before moving to the Keys for two years. She served as secretary of the Key West Writers Guild and was named an Unsung Hero in 2017 for her service.

Final judge Clay Reynolds, Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas, said of the story:

“What puts it on top of the stack ultimately, is that it is so well-crafted, that the characters are so well-wrought and well-rounded; the setting is three-dimensional and vivid, and the surrounding ambience of the whole thing suggests a holistic writing experience that brings the characters off the page, rounds them out, and forces us to care about them, even though they are so severely flawed that they seem at times to be too real, too pitiful, too self-absorbed to be tolerable. Yet somehow, they transcend those flaws with their own sense of humanity, their emotional depth, and their sense of struggle against nearly overwhelming forces. A sensual piece, it brings to the fore the contrast between lust and love, strength and dominance, vulnerability and weakness.”

“Blindsided” received an Anne McKee artist’s grant in early 2017 and was reviewed by professor Lee Martin at Vermont College of Fine Art’s postgraduate writing conference. The book will be available online and in most large bookstores.

For more information, check the Texas Review Press website at texaspressreview.org or follow the author at www.facebook.com/chelsea.catherine01

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