Lilburn Resident Wins Contest for Aspiring Writers

Lilburn resident and aspiring young adult author Cathy Hall recently won a writing contest sponsored by the Book Wish Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing books to Darfuri refugee camps. They also send reading glasses, support literacy programs, and proviide solar-rechargable reading lights where there is no electricity.  

The prize includes a professional manuscript critique by Nancy Gallt, Jeanne DuPrau's (City of Ember) literary agent. 

“To promote its new anthology, What You Wish For, proceeds from which support library development in Darfuri refugee camps in Chad, Africa, Book Wish Foundation asked readers to write essays about the short stories in the book,” said Lorraine Kleinwaks, Vice President of the Book Wish Foundation, in a press release. 

The book is a collection of short stories by bestselling young adult authors, including R.L. Stine (author of the Goosebumps series), Meg Cabot (author of the Princess Diaries series) and Ann M. Martin (author of the Babysitter's Club series). 

“The authors wrote stories about wishes,” Hall said in a conversation with Lilburn Patch, “and related the stories to human conditions.” 

Aspiring writers were asked to react to the stories and respond with essays relating the story to the situation of Darfuri refugees in Sudan. Hall's response to Jeanne DuPrau's “Pearl's Fateful Wish,” a story about a young girl who lives in cramped highrise and longs for solitude, won the prize. 

“There is a sameness to everybody's life,” Hall reflected. “There is a commonality to have a space of your own. It's an emotional and physical need.” 

Her essay compares the cramped living condition in a young girl's futuristic highrise to the living conditions in Darfuri refugee camps. 

"Such a simple wish, to be left alone!" reads part of her essay. "But even such a simple desire is impossible when living in a Darfuri refugee camp where row upon row of tents bunch together looking like a sea of hanging sheets upon a never-ending clothesline. And in each tent a family, all more or less like your own, trying to survive."

Hall, whose niche is humorous short stories and essays, said the essay was a challenge and a step outside of her comfort zone.

"This one didn't call for a light touch,” she said. “I had to tap into a different tone.” 

The plight of Darfuri refugees was something that concerned her, however, and she was glad to take a proactive step in making a difference by purchasing the book. All proceeds go toward the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). 

“I thought, even if I don't win the contest, I will have helped the cause,” she said. 

Hall began writing fiction around six or seven years ago. Her educational background is in broadcast journalism, followed by a career as a copy writer.

She has since won numerous awards, including the Michael Lacapa Award (First Prize) in the Southwestern Society of Authors Children’s Short Story Writing Competition for The Girl Who Would Be King, the WCCW Award (First Place, White County Creative Writers, Children's Fiction) for The Problem with S.H.E., and First Place for Novels in the 2010 Southern Breeze, SCBWI Writing Contest for Pen Pal.

Pen Pal, a novel she began during National Novel Writing Month in 2009, will be the manuscript she submits to Nancy Gallt. The young adult book is a contemporary novel about a freshman girl in high school who is interested in the Vice President of the math and science club... but her own interests tend toward the otherwordly.  

You can find out more about Hall by following her blog or following her on Facebook.  You can purchase a copy of What You Wish For: A Book for Darfur here.