The Videographer

Hey Vermont 3-Dayers! Here’s another opportunity to meet and greet a fellow 3-Day survivor. Jason Rapczynski, the winner of the 2008 3-Day Novel Contest, will read from The Videographer at his alma mater, Saint Michael’s College in Colchester (near Burlington) on February 4. Drop by if you’re in the area, and pick up a signed copy for yourself!

Details:

Jason Rapczynski alumni reading
Thursday, February 4, 4:30 p.m.
Saint Michael’s College
Farrell Room (315 St. Edmund’s Hall)
1 Winooski Park, Colchester, Vermont (directions)

Snowmen by Mark Sedore

2nd Prize Winner

McKinley M. Hellenes of Mission, British Columbia, for Everything Will Be OK

3rd Prize Winner

Victoria Dunn of Ottawa, Ontario, for Alice’s Adventures with Welsh Zombies

Shortlisted Novelists

• Miguel Burr (Vancouver, BC) for Flourescence

• Keith Chittleborough (Glen Waverley, Australia) for Sheepless in Puckapunyal

• Karen Cressman (Brampton, ON) for Breaking the Girl
• 
Kimberly Davidson (Vancouver, BC) for Jabula

• Alice Egoyan and Devon Motola (Fresno, CA) for 77
• 
David Gibson (Hamilton, ON) for Cold Heaven Blonde
• 
Barbara Gordon (Victoria, BC) for Culture Heroes

• Meredith Kennedy (Palo Alto, CA) for Strange Alchemy
• 
Edward Lineberry (Dallas, TX) for Forged Prophet

• J.C. Locke (Carrboro, NC) for Big Crunch

• Gavin McLachlan (Toronto, ON) for Give Up Your Self
• 
Greg Morrison (Woodstock, VA) for The Goetist

• Erica Naone (Allston MA) for Needle and Fang

• Marion Stein (New York, NY) for Hungry Ghosts
• 
T.R. White (Brampton, ON) for Billy Blue Bear

Snowmen will be released by 3-Day Books in August 2010, and will be distributed by Arsenal Pulp Press (via Consortium in the U.S. and Jaguar in Canada). ISBN 978-1-55152-366-8, $14.95 CAD/USD, 5×7.25″ quality paperback, 176 pp.

Mark Sedore

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Sedore, winner of the 32nd Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest, is a professional writer and graduate student living in Toronto. His previous entries to the 3-Day Novel Contest have won honourable mention and second place. Snowmen will be his first published novel.

Mark came up with the idea for Snowmen while visiting Whitehorse over the 2008 winter holiday. As with his previous contest entries, he approached the event without a formal outline—as an experienced graduate student he has produced many, many outlines and essays, and he prefers to approach the contest in a different way. (”I think it’s important to keep surprising yourself,” he says.) But unlike his previous attempts, in which he tackled the 3-Day Novel Contest alone, this time he teamed up with a small group of friends and fellow entrants to write and suffer together. He left his wife behind to travel with them to Perth, Ontario, where they holed up in a friend’s house to write without distractions over the Labour Day long weekend.

Mark has an MA in Political Science from the University of Toronto and is finishing a second in Communication and Culture from York and Ryerson universities. He has worked as a writer for the City of Toronto, has produced a zine on Scouting, and ran for Toronto City Council at the age of 22 (and was “flatteringly defeated by eight other candidates”). Mark currently works full-time at the University of Toronto as a writer in the President’s Office and part-time as a supervisor at Massey Hall.

Media Queries: info@3daynovel.com

Mark Sedore

GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Snowmen by Mark Sedore of Toronto, Ontario
The winning entry to the latest 3-Day Novel Contest is the story of a man who struggles to complete a record-setting trip across the Arctic Circle while his unstable and resentful brother plays a deadly game of sabotage. Snowmen will be released by 3-Day Books in August 2010. Click here for more on the winning novel and its author.

2nd PLACE WINNER
McKinley M. Hellenes of Mission, British Columbia, for Everything Will Be OK
Winning $500

3rd PLACE WINNER
Victoria Dunn of Ottawa, Ontario, for Alice’s Adventures with Welsh Zombies
Winning $100

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Miguel Burr (Vancouver, BC) for Flourescence
Keith Chittleborough (Glen Waverley, Australia) for Sheepless in Puckapunyal
Karen Cressman (Brampton, ON) for Breaking the Girl
Kimberly Davidson (Vancouver, BC) for Jabula
Alice Egoyan and Devon Motola (Fresno, CA) for 77
David Gibson (Hamilton, ON) for Cold Heaven Blonde
Barbara Gordon (Victoria, BC) for Culture Heroes
Meredith Kennedy (Palo Alto, CA) for Strange Alchemy
Edward Lineberry (Dallas, TX) for Forged Prophet
J.C. Locke (Carrboro, NC) for Big Crunch
Gavin McLachlan (Toronto, ON) for Give Up Your Self
Greg Morrison (Woodstock, VA) for The Goetist
Erica Naone (Allston MA) for Needle and Fang
Marion Stein (New York, NY) for Hungry Ghosts
T.R. White (Brampton, ON) for Billy Blue Bear

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF OUR ENTRANTS!

The judges were pleased and impressed with the quality and originality of the submissions to this pressure-cooker event. Once again we would like to give special mention to Natasha Carr-Harris of Vancouver, our youngest entrant for the second year running and the author of The Story of St. Patrick’s Day. Special mention also to our second-youngest entrants (also in their second year), Abby Adams and Sean Vipond of Cochrane, Ontario, who teamed up to write an untitled collaborative sci-fi/fantasy novel, and to the creative writing students at Pleasant Valley Secondary School in Armstrong, B.C., who holed up at their school during the contest to complete their wonderful novels as a group.

This year’s event drew in a record 650 entrants, of whom 460 managed to complete and submit a novel. Twenty countries were represented in this year’s event, making it the most international 3-Day Novel Contest on record! Every year it is monster task for our judges to pick a few winners from the incredible works submitted to the contest and this round was no exception. We thank everyone who put their heart into this creative experience and allowed us to read the results!

For those who are interested in taking part in the next 3-Day Novel Contest, the 33rd Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest will take place September 4-6, 2010. Save the date, and ask to be added to our newsletter list so you are notified when registration opens!

3-Day Novel Newsletter

We don’t have an announcement for you yet, so we’ve put together a few newsy bits to keep you occupied in the meantime. Click here to read the latest newsletter, and bear with us until we can present a list of winners from the 32nd Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest! We hope to have an announcement for you some time in the last week of January.

If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, enter your email in the sign-up form in the Social box to the right, or send us a note at info@3daynovel.com. If you already subscribe and didn’t receive it, check your spam box and add 3_Day_Novel_Contest@mail.vresp.com to your “not spam” list.

BookTelevision's 3-Day Novel

After two years, we can finally congratulate Gayleen Froese, winner of the second season of the televised 3-Day Novel Contest. The season was filmed during the 2007 International 3-Day Novel Contest and, after a long process involving media mergers and licensing and other things beyond our ken, the last of 7 episodes aired on BookTelevision last night. The 12 contestants slept, ate and wrote their novels in public in a Chapters bookstore in Edmonton. Gayleen won with The Dominion, a wonderful fantasy novel that also made the 2007 3DN shortlist.

We participated in the filming and loved the experience. The producers, crew, contestants and fellow judges were great fun, and it was fascinating to be present and witness contestants writing their novels, which is something we don’t often get to see as we furiously coordinate the event from down in our secret underground bunker.

A big thanks to Gayleen and her partners in suffering: runners-up Paul Matwychuk and Matthew J. Trafford, and their excellent co-contestants Nancy Belgue, James Burns, Marty Chan, Joe Goodwill, Jennifer Isaac, Gordon Kirkland, Rebecca Shuttleworth, Lorna Sloukji and Tracy Thompson. Thanks also to the crew, to Rachel Harry, the show’s charming host, to our fellow judges Minister Faust and Todd Babiak, and to Tate Young and Rachel Sentes, who helped bring the show to fruition.

We’re not sure if BookTelevision plans to re-air either season of the show, so if you want to see it, contact them and maybe they will! You can get a taste by watching a trailer for the first season on YouTube.

The Videographer

We’ve got another upcoming reading in Connecticut with Jason Rapczynski, winner of the 2008 3-Day Novel Contest and author of The Videographer, our 2009 release. If you’re in the area, come meet Jason and pick his brain about surviving, thriving and coming out on top during the contest.

Details:
Tuesday, December 22
12 p.m to 2 p.m.
John Bale Book Company
158 Grand St., Waterbury, Connecticut (map)

Jason will also appear at Saint Michael’s College in Burlington, Vermont in early February - we’ll post more details on that event in the new year.

Jason Rapczynski will appear at a Borders bookstore in Milford, CT, this SATURDAY afternoon (Dec. 12) to sign copies of The Videographer. Come out and say hi, and get some Christmas shopping done while you’re at it!

Details:

Borders bookstore
Saturday, Dec. 12
2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
1201 Boston Post Road (map)
Milford, CT