Salinas Author Martin H. Dodd Wins National Story Contest –
CARMEL VALLEY, CA - NorthernPros.com is proud to announce Salinas author Martin Dodd as the winner of its national story contest held in January 2006. The contest was set up to launch Cadillac Cicatrix, a new journal of writing that champions the work of innovative and accomplished writers from around the world.
Dodd received a $250 award for his story, Dead Roses. The story will be published in Cadillac Cicatrix and online at CadillacCicatrix.com this summer.
"Dead Roses was inspired by a chance meeting in a friend's life," Dodd explains. "I became intrigued with how a trifling event profoundly affected so many lives – now including mine. My story is to suggest the chain reaction in which each decision by each person inevitably affects the choices of everyone."
Dodd began creative writing at age 31 and won short story contests in the 1960's. After retirement, at age 67, Dodd resumed writing in 2002. Since then, he has published poetry and short stories and won awards from Writer's Digest (2004), Writers Weekly (winter 2006), and the Central Coast Writers Group (California 2003, 2004).
The contest judge was Peter Orner*, award-winning author of Esther Stories and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo.
"Peter Orner was the perfect judge for this contest," said Benjamin Spencer, founding editor of NorthernPros.com and Cadillac Cicatrix. "Peter's prose is crafted with these delicate emotional grenades. His stories continue detonating even after you've finished reading."
Orner is the 2002-2003 winner of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He holds both an MFA from the University of Iowa and a degree in law.
Spencer's theory for the new literary journal is simple – "Start a grassroots effort to publish and promote incredible writing." Spencer, who has been editing and designing news and literary publications since 1995 said, "The writing is most important. It's not enough to simply publish writers anymore. The writing has to leap like a frog chasing a fly down the street."
"The unique thing about Cadillac Cicatrix is that it's giving attention to new and accomplished writers and the Monterey Peninsula," said Wendy Goldman*, a screenplay analyst with NorthernPros. "Carmel, Monterey and Big Sur have expansive literary histories. We are very proud to contribute to that past and the future of the peninsula's literary reputation with this journal."
Chaz Reetz-Laiolo* is a prose and screenplay editor with NorthernPros. "It is so important that authors are encouraged to develop the craft of story. The best stories are retold for generations," he said. Reetz-Laiolo was a Merit Scholar at the acclaimed School at the Art Institute in Chicago.
Cadillac Cicatrix has an August publishing date. It will be available online at CadillacCicatrix.com and distributed nationally in print.
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* Martin Dodd began creative writing at age 31. He won short story contests at Hartnell College in 1966 and 1967. He then pursued a career in community service. After retirement, at age 67, Martin resumed creative writing in 2002. Since then, he contributed poetry and short stories to an anthology: The Barmaid, The Bean Counter, And The Bungee Jumper and his poetry appeared in Chicken Soup For The Recovering Soul. His short stories have appeared in several issues of The Homestead Review and won awards from Writer's Digest (2004), Writers Weekly (winter 2006), and the Central Coast Writers (California 2003, 2004).
* Peter Orner is the 2002-2003 winner of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His story collection, Esther Stories , was a New York Times Notable Book, a Finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award, and winner of the Samuel Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction. Orner holds both an MFA from the University of Iowa and a degree in law. His work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize Anthology and has appeared in a number of national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review. Orner currently lives in San Francisco and teaches at San Francisco State University.
* Cadillac Cicatrix was founded by former students of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Boulder; the School at the Art Institute, Chicago; and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, Iowa City. Authors published in Cadillac Cicatrix are promoted by NorthernPros Creations as featured artists without cost to those authors. NorthernPros.com is an all-access literary resource for writers.
* Wendy A. Goldman has held executive positions at Magnusfilms; The Polone Company; The Knight Company, and the Monterey County Film Commission. She is on staff at the Monterey Museum of Art and volunteers at the John Steinbeck Museum.
* Chaz Reetz-Laiolo is editorial director for NorthernPros.com and Cadillac Cicatrix. He was the recipient of the prestigious Merit Scholarship in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he completed his MFA. Nominated for Best New American Voices 2006, his fiction can be found most recently in Fourteen Hills Review. He lives in Oakland, California with his daughter, Isa.
* Benjamin North Spencer is the founding editor of NorthernPros.com and Cadillac Cicatrix. He has been a member of the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa and is a graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. His novel Godspeed on the Beggars at Dawn was featured at the Unpublished Underground Gallery in New York in 2005. He is a member of the Monterey County Film Commission. Spencer lives and works in Carmel Valley, California where he is currently doing research for a novel about the wine industry.
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