Award-winning author Liah Penn will talk about how entering contests can improve your writing and increase your marketability. Using real examples from contests she entered, Liah will show how some critiques are worth their weight in gold and how judging criteria is important to genre fiction writing.

Liah Penn is an award winning author of two romantic suspense novels in the Ina Stone and Sam Fujimoto mystery series. She is a 2015 recipient of the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense for her debut novel Pure Death, published by Etopia Press, as well as a first and second place winner in the romantic suspense categories for her manuscripts Bare Bones and The Sweet Death in the Dixie Kane Memorial Contest. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and recently penned an article for RT Digital about her journey to publication. Her legal career is as varied as her personal interests: she has worked as a prosecutor on an Indian reservation, on the Mexican border and in a major metropolis, and her sometimes gritty imagery is based on her personal experience on the streets and morgues of Arizona. Apart from writing, she is also a visual artist and enjoys painting and pottery. She resides outside of New Orleans with her husband and two sons, both of whom show great promise as a writer and an artist.

Pure Death (Etopia Press 2014)
Pure Justice  (Etopia Press 2015)
Short Story: “A Cabin in the Woods,” Never Fear – Christmas Terrors (13 Thirty Publishers)