Scarlet Stiletto Awards! Feeling like a winner just being there!

The Sisters in Crime host an annual crime short story competition exclusively for women writers called the Scarlet Stiletto Awards and this year, my entry,  "#hitandrun" , was shortlisted. Here I am with the gang of shortlisted authors!

Here's a bit of background to the competition from the website:
"In 21 years, 2,735 stories have been entered with 18 Scarlet Stiletto Award winners and other category winners going on to have novels published. Cate Kennedy, Tara Moss, Angela Savage, Josephine Pennicott, Ellie Marney, Sara Evans, Inga Simpson, Alex Palmer, Liz Filleul, Margaret Bevege, Patricia Bernard, Bronwen Blake, Jo McGahey, Cheryl Jorgensen, Kylie Fox, Simmone Howell, Sandi Wallace and Amanda Wrangles."

Readers of this blog might be familiar with my modest writing ambitions and failures (I wrote about the endless rejection here) and it was just a delight to be on an illustrious short list which included the real deal published authors like Angela Savage and Sandi Wallace. In fact - it was so delightful I think I almost smiled my face in half!

The awards were presented by the gracious actress Marta Dusseldorp, who charmed the audience with her intelligence, warmth and humour.
Judith Bridge from Perth took out the major award - The Scarlet Stiletto. Which is LITERALLY a scarlet stiletto shoe mounted as a trophy! She gave a gorgeous and hilarious speech!

It was a fabulous and slightly surreal night. Those Sisters In Crime are the most welcoming gang of criminally minded women you're ever likely to encounter. When I arrived I was ushered to a table AND given a glass of wine! I couldn't believe it. And I even got to chat to Graeme Simsion at the bar,  the creator of the wonderfully warm and funny "The Rosie Project"! I felt like a gatecrasher! (A rather conspicuous gatecrasher in those enormous blingtastic Anna Davern earrings and rather large op shopped skirt and hair dyed "psychedelic sunset" - hence the gloves for my hands psychedelic too! Eurgh!)

Firstly, the highly commended awards were given and as each writer walked to the stage their bio's were read out.  The calibre of authors was breath taking - published novelists, short story writers, creative writing teachers, journalists - which further made me feel like an out of my depth gatecrasher!  And when my name didn't come up in the highly commended, I was fairly sure I was getting zip - not that I cared, I couldn't stop giggling with just BEING THERE! I laughed clapped and hooted! I was so confident I hadn't won a thing that I was slightly distracted and chatting to the lovely woman next to me, Sue Williams, when I heard my name! Sheesh! I wasn't even sure what I'd got until I was staggering onto the stage in my six inch platform shoes, lifting my ridiculously enormous skirt so as not to do a Jennifer Lawrence style face plant (enough seersucker in that thing to clothe the whole Von Trapp Family in matching outfits!)  and there I was on stage being handed a certificate for SECOND PRIZE!! I know! Can you believe it??? And my bio mentioned crocheting plastic bags and playing tennis. Hilarious! Did I mention I felt out of my depth???

I even got to say a speech - which is all a blur thanks to nerves, adrenalin and champagne. I think and hope I said thank you to the right people and I think I told everyone to read more books by Australian Women Authors (see here my blog post about the Australian Women Writers Challenge)
At least when I was handed the microphone I didn't get mixed up that I was doing karaoke ..."and a one, two, three, four..."

So thank you Sisters in Crime and Pantera Press for my prize ($1000!!!) and for making me feel like Cinderella at the ball - even if I didn't get a shoe!

The photo above from author Anne Buist's blog post about the event.