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KORINNA - AN HISTORICAL NOVEL BY KRISTINA O'DONNELLY, WINS POW! AWARD 11/16/2007 8:25:11 AM
Hello, Friends!
For the third year in a row, on November 10, my BIRTHDAY (amazing coincidence) I received the wonderful news of an award for one of my novels, this time, KORINNA – DAUGHTERS OF THE FIRE, I.
Truly the timing is incredible! Perhaps this is one way my beloved late parents are sending me a birthday card from heaven.....
Of course I'd like to grasp this wondrous occasion and tell you all about KORINNA, but first, I want to tell you what the POW! Award is all about.
Caryn Day-Suarez, an author and Owner/President of POW! describes her organization thusly: "Yes, POW! is Promoting Outstanding Writers, but we do so much more. POW! is all about promoting, writers, performers, artists, photographers, anything and anyone to do with the arts. We're what's happening now! We pack the punch that sells and gets YOU known. It's all about building a rep, making money, having fun, mingling, canoodling, friendship...."
Caryn’s written three award-winning books, and an award winning screenplay (for Living Crazy Like Fly ).
You can find out more about Caryn Day-Suarez right here, at Author's Den. Just type in her name in the search bar.
A very important aspect of the POW! Award is that while POW! is the sponsor, the judging is done by a panel of anonymous judges from the FCCJ (Florida Community College, Jacksonville), led by Dr Dana Thomas, Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences. By the way Dr. Dana Thomas is an author as well.
But now, based on comments I received, I'd like to delve into what Women's Fiction entails.
Yes, KORINNA - DAUGHTERS OF THE FIRE, I, is Historical Fiction. But I entered it in the Women's Fiction category. This category is not ROMANCE, per se, although it may very well contain a love story.
By the way, I understand that while publishers do have a category called Women's Fiction, bookstores do not, and place these novels in General Fiction area. In addition, due to being placed in this section (a practice I agree with, for this way we can appeal to readers of both genders), publishers and book sellers cannot quite analyze its sales.According to Wikipedia, Women's fiction is an umbrella term for a wide-ranging collection of literary sub-genres that are marketed to female readers, including many mainstream novels, romantic fiction, "chick-lit" and other sub genres.
Well, as I've said before, I do not see Women's Fiction as of interest to only female readers. Women's Fiction is more about the empowerment, or lack thereof, of women, delved upon in a thought-provoking story that might be placed in the past or the present. This genre reflects the female trial and tribulations throughout the ages, her rise and fall in the social strata of humanity in general, from the distant, misty past, to the Bronze Age and forward, but also, how the female's standing affects the lives of men.
Yes, truth is, while men might be from Mars and women from Venus )), we are closely interrelated, and the overall female empowerment or lack thereof deeply influences the fortunes of the men in any given society.
Let me make a simplified statement: Dumbed down women, give birth to and raise, dumbed down sons.
All right, yes, this is a simplified statement. Better said, women who, generation after generation, have been robbed of their personal and intellectual freedom, raised in a society as chattels and servants of their men, forbidden -- be it through lack of money or tolerance -- from having an education, or a skill with which they can earn the means of financial independence, who are forbidden to be in charge of their own lives/destiny, are forced to breed children who grow up to be cheap slaves and soldiers, used in service of their mass-manipulator overlords. Hmmm. Doesn't it all boil down to The User and the Usee?
KORINNA's tale is an intense tour-de-force into the history of Ancient Greece, Rome, Anatolia, but also, mirrors the plight of women in those times. Women who had no say in the running of their lives, existing only for their men until they were killed in battle. Proud of and motivated by for being named after Korinna, a 5th B.C. Greek poetess, our heroine is driven to defy a woman's traditional, unquestioningly subservient role in order to be independent, and battles to chart her own course in life.
To be continued….
