Looking for a clever Christmas present for your hairdresser? I’m giving mine one of the Bad Hair Days mystery series of books written by our recent luncheon speaker Nancy Cohen.

Two Florida Gulf Coast University students attended the Writers’ Conference hoping to learn some writing skills for the future.

Recently two Florida newspapers were recognized at the Pulitzer Award Ceremony. Paige St. John of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune won the investigative reporting award and Greg Kahn of the Naples Daily News was named one of the finalists for the feature photography Pulitzer.

Anthony Rao won a publishing contract!!

For the 2011 Naples Press Club’s Writers’ Conference, the organizers hosted a contest for writers who purchased a full conference registration. Those attendees were invited to send a 3,000-word portion of a completed manuscript by a February deadline for critique by a panel of judges. Those manuscripts were returned to each entrant with judges’ comments and with score sheets containing more of the judges’ comments during a brief ceremony Saturday of the conference.

The judges awarded second-place to Craig S. Garrett for his MS titled The Sheriff and the Boy; first-place to Joyce McDonald for her MS titled The Benediction; and grand prize to Anthony Rao for his MS titled The Last Hour. For his prize, Rao receives a publishing contract from Night Wolf Publications.

Congratulations to all the winners.