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The 5th Annual
Jeannie Gray Golden Friendship Award
And the 2008 JGGFA
goes to...
Sherri
Buerkle
Sherri
has allowed
the GH99er loop to post her
winning essay
here for all to draw inspiration from.
This year's essay
topic was:
Describe the
joy you feel when you write and
how you
sustain it though to the end of your story.
Sherri's response:
Peace. That is what I feel when I write.
The rest of the world melts away and images
in my head take over. The world of
make-believe is a bit liquid in my mind. I
can pass through it like fingers splay
through water – slip in, wiggle my fingers
over the keys for a moment and then leave …
but mostly I languish. Writing feeds my
emotions. I can safely let them loose.
Liberate myself on the page. I can be
someone I’ve always wanted to be.
Villainous in one scene, heroic in the
next.
It has taken me years to realize one
irrefutable fact. Writing isn’t easy. It
isn’t easy sitting in front of a blank
screen when no words appear. It isn’t easy
letting people read what I labored over for
months, sometimes years. Worse, it isn’t
easy writing well – to capture people’s
hearts and emotions and make them feel what
I feel when I write. I want to move people
the way words move me. That is what
sustains me, what keeps me writing to the
end. And no matter how I believe a story
will end, there are always surprises layered
deeply in the words I never foresaw. Ideas
and phrase s and emotions I didn’t know I
could relate. When I’m done, I still don’t
believe I wrote them. Faeries must have
snuck into my house, booted up my computer
and placed them there.
I love to write. The joy, the pleasure, the
peace it brings adds meaning to my life. I
would write even if I was assured not a word
would ever see a publisher’s desk. I
willingly succumb to the joyous labor
because to do anything less would make my
world a duller place.
Congratulations Sherri and to
all the wonderful writers who entered this
year.
We'll be rooting for all of
you to succeed in attaining your dream of
publication!
In March, 1999 a small band of
writers, mostly unknown to each other at the
time, became finalists in the Romance Writers of
America Golden Heart®
contest for unpublished writers. One of our
group created an email loop for
the finalists and many of us quickly became
acquaintances, then friends, and finally family.
There are approximately 32 members still active
on the loop. We lost one of our sisters, Jeannie
Gray, to cancer, in March of 2004.
Jeannie was a lovely, giving person, and a
talented writer. She finaled twice in the Golden Heart®,
and had one of those manuscripts under consideration at the
time of her passing. She was a high honors graduate of
Portland State University with a degree in speech
communications, a degree she sought after her three children
were grown. When her children were small, she traveled with
her husband Gary, serving as a missionary, living out of a
backpack at times. A soft, caring woman who gave great hugs,
she was also amazingly strong. She once fended off a
carjacker alone. To those who knew her, her most beloved
quality was her optimism. She once wrote, "I like to say
that I am Directionally Challenged. Can't find my way out of
a revolving door. I have been known, while following
specific directions, to drive 100 miles on the right highway
-- in the wrong direction." But Jeannie was always looking
for the silver lining. "Actually," she wrote, "I consider it
a gift instead of a burden. I've seen so many wonderful
places I never would have seen if I hadn't been wandering
around lost."
To honor this incredible woman and gifted writer who was
brought into our lives through her writing, we, her 99er
sisters and her family, have created an award to help other
writers enter the Golden Heart®
contest so they may reach for their dreams as Jeannie strove
towards hers.
One recipient
for the 2008 Jeannie Gray Golden Friendship Award
will be chosen by the members of the GH99er loop based on
the essays submitted (see below). The award will be
presented by the membership in the form of a $100 check and
a beautiful certificate. It is our intention that this award
be used by the winner to offset the costs of entering the
2008 Golden Heart®
Contest sponsored by Romance Writers of America.
However this award is in no way affiliated with RWA or any
of its contests.
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