Dale Dapkins wins 2018 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 Dale Dapkins has garnered this year's writing award for his manuscript, “Island Dreams”. In addition to winning this year’s Key West Writer’s Guild Award, Dale is a two time first prize winner in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, and was the first prize winner in the Tennessee Williams Short Story Contest in 2016.

This year marks the fifteenth annual award for the cash prize which is supported by an endowment under the administration of the Arts Council. Past winners include: Lisa Mahoney, Joanna Brady Schmida, Richard DeGrasse, Harry Schroeder, the late Elizabeth Warner, 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: Lew Weinstein, author of 4 novels and a Princeton and Harvard Business School graduate, Mark Hedden, a writer, photographer and birding guide who writes narrative nonfiction, primarily ornithology- oriented natural history, and Linda Cunningham, a Key West-based journalist and writer specializing in short stories and political columns with a left-leaning moderate point of view.

Local writers with works in progress are encouraged to apply for the 2019 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.