Deseret News has posted a short piece on the need for nominations for next year’s Whitney Awards. Please check it out here, make a comment, and then plug it on FB, Twitter, and your own blog(s). If it gets enough traffic, they’ll consider putting the piece in their print newspaper, which would be seen by so many more readers.

And that’s exactly what is needed–more eyes on the Whitneys. The award program can only be as good as its nominees and finalists and, for that, it needs regular readers who are aware of all the best LDS literature out there. I’m not just talking about stories about LDS life (though that counts). I’m talking about any published novel by an LDS author, whether it was published in the LDS market, the national market, or self-published. The more nominees the Whitneys get, and the more wide-ranging they are from all different parts of the country and even the world (yes, as long as the book was published in English during 2011 and is written by a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–no matter their country of origin–and you thought it was really good, it can be nominated), the better the competition will become and the more deserving the winners will be each year.

Writing as a former finalist (and that novel was self-published), I can’t think of any other program that will help the quality of LDS Fiction to increase faster.

Originally posted 2011-10-17 09:17:07.