Author Revives Writing Career With International Fiction Prize Entry About Small Missouri Town

Sept. 5, 2015 - PRLog -- Author Richard Davis lost most of his more than twenty completed fiction works when hard times saw him become homeless for a number of years. He is now poised to win an international fiction prize that could see a surviving manuscript written when he was sixteen years old published by an Australian publisher.

After entering the Wildwood Fiction Prize, which is asking authors to pitch their manuscript in less than 125 characters on Twitter, Richard Davis finds himself sitting in second place – just one spot away from winning publication.

His entry into the Wildwood Fiction Prize is based on a weather disaster that hits a small Missouri town. Mr. Davis researched for the story and based it on various towns in Missouri, commenting that, “the entire town is fictional, based partly on Brookfield and other small towns in the MO area. I researched extensively with the National Weather Service and the Severe Storms Center in K.C. during the writing phase”. He also has big plans for the story’s future, revealing, “I would love to have my book made into a major motion picture or at least a made-for-tv movie.”

Of his previous misfortune, Mr. Davis laments, “I had two novels and 25 short stories completed; unfortunately, most of these were lost during my nomadic years of living homeless in Orlando.” Yet now Mr. Davis, who says the hardest thing about being an author is “Getting people to understand that this is a lifelong passion, and not just a ‘job’,” is seeking to reignite his interrupted writing career, stating: “I have outlines for six more novels and fifteen short stories.”

Things have been looking up for Mr. Davis in recent years, who reconnected with his highschool sweetheart, Jeannie, some 30 years after they’d last seen each other. They went on to serve in the ministry together for eight years, with Mr. Davis pastoring a few smaller churches in Missouri. They are now married and live in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and their daughter, Kelsey, starts college this week.

People can vote for Mr. Davis or their favorite manuscript ‘pitch’ on Twitter via the feed of @Wildwood_Prize. Entries are still open, with voting concluding 20 September.