FLORIDA KEYS COUNCIL OF THE ARTS
Press Release
Contact: Liz Young
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 305-295-4369
May 18, 2017

Lisa Mahoney wins 2017 Key West Writers Guild award

The Florida Keys Council of the Arts, in conjunction with the Key West Writers Guild is pleased to announce that Lisa Mahoney has garnered this year's writing award for her novel, "Let Go." Lisa is a 2014 graduate of Pine Manor College in Boston where she received a MFA degree in Creative Writing and Fiction, and has served as an adjunct professor teaching English at both University of Massachusetts Lowell and at Florida Keys Community College. Lisa has written three short stories in print, published in literary journals, and has twice received the Honorable Mention Award for the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition.

This year marks the fourteenth annual award for the cash prize which is supported by an endowment under the administration of the Arts Council. Past winners include: Joanna Brady Schmida, Richard DeGrasse, Harry Schroeder, Elizabeth Warner and Eddie Goldstein and Rusty Hodgdon. The manuscript, identified only by number, was reviewed in a competitive field of submittals and selected by three distinguished judges: Bill Grose, retired executive vice president at Simon & Schuster, Board Member of the Friends of the Library and the Studios of Key West. Cricket Desmarais, local writer, mixed media artist, and choreographer; and Bonnie Greenberg, writer and Board Member of the Florida Keys Council of the Arts.

Local writers with works in progress are encouraged to apply for the 2018 award of $2000. To qualify, one must be a resident of Monroe County, a member of the Key West Writers Guild, and working on either a novel or a work of non-fiction. Applicants must read from their work at two meetings of the Key West Writers Guild. Membership is paid annually, and meetings are held at 9:00 a.m. on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month at Key West by the Sea. For more information – please visit the Arts Council website www.keysarts.com    

###