What's your favorite genre?

When I read, nowadays I read YA. I have books upon books on my to be list. I have enjoyed suspense, mysteries, and thrillers a lot though too. Some of my favorite authors from those categories are Dennis Lehane, Harlen Coben, and Michael Chrichton. Stephen King is probably my favorite author of all time though. He's really the only horror author I've read, aside from a couple Dean Koontz books. To be honest, though, I think the last book of his I read was The Green Mile.

If we're talking writing, YA obviously. Mostly I've written contemporary, but I'm now trying my hand at fantasy and sci-fi. I've got a couple adult projects on the back burner as well, and a couple more ideas for those as well.

That's mainly my problem is too many ideas and not enough time.

So tell me, what is your favorite genre to read? To write?

I'm Entered

Last night I entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) contest. For those of you who've never heard of it, it's a contest that Amazon has put on for the last five years for writer to win a publishing contract. They used to partner up with Penguin, but now, since they've started their own publishing company, are doing it on their own.

The contest is a little different than in the past. They used to give away two awards, one in general fiction, one in YA, I believe both winners got a contract and a $25,000 advance.

This year  one Grand Prize winner will receive a publishing contract with an advance of $50,000, and four First Prize winners will each receive a publishing contract with an advance of $15,000.

They've expanded the categories to include five genres: General Fiction, Romance, Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror and Young Adult Fiction. You can view the official contest rules, or read details on how to enter.

Back in 2007, this was my first venture into a writing forum and meeting other writers. I will say, it was one of the best things I ever did. I made so many friends from all over the country, many of them I'm still tight with.

If you have a finished novel between 50-150k, you may want to enter. They take unpublished or self published books as entries. Take a look. What do you have to lose.