From Claymore to Award-Winning Series

By R.G. Belsky

---

My new mystery novel, Broadcast Blues, came out on January 2. It’s the sixth book in a series published by Oceanview about a woman TV journalist in New York City who solves murders. So how did I wind up writing this series—and, even more importantly, getting it published?  Well, that’s a long story. A long, long story.

It began years earlier when I first got the idea for writing a book about a journalist haunted by a big story from her past with long-buried secrets that she had never revealed. The book was then called Forget Me Not, and it featured a different lead character from Clare Carlson.

I spent a lot of time rewriting it in various forms with several different primary protagonists after that—but had no success in getting it published, no matter how many different approaches I tried. 

Fast forward to the 2016 Killer Nashville International Writers Conference. I had a new version of the book now that I had entered in the Claymore Award competition. What do I have to lose? I figured. 

So on an August evening in Nashville, I sat at the awards dinner and listened to all the names of finalists and runners-up being announced. When my name wasn’t called as a runner-up, I figured I’d just have to try again next year. But then Clay Stafford announced the winner of the 2016 Claymore Award: It was Forget Me Not by R.G. Belsky!

The rest of the evening was kind of a daze. I remember receiving the Claymore Award itself—a huge trophy that was almost too big to carry—an agent approaching me and asking if I wanted representation, and being asked the next day by the head of a panel I was on to bring the Claymore Award trophy with me to inspire others.

It was a memorable experience for me—an experience I hope many of you out there will have a chance to experience too. 

Things moved quickly after that. Oceanview Publishing bought my book and changed the name to Yesterday’s News, and it came out in 2018. They told me they liked my Clare character so much they wanted to publish more of her, so I have done a Clare Carlson book a year since then.

I’ve been fortunate to get a lot of awards and acclaim for the series. Yesterday’s News was named the Best Mystery of 2018 by Deadly Ink Mystery Conference. The follow-up book in the series, Below The Fold, won the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Gold Winner for Mystery. And I’ve finished as a Silver Falchion Finalist at Killer Nashville with several of the Clare Carlson mystery novels. 

Would I have had all this success without winning the Claymore Award at Killer Nashville?

Maybe.

But the Claymore Award definitely was the turning point for me to turn out the Clare Carlson series as well as a number of other books since then.

Yes, the Claymore is a unique competition, unlike any I’ve ever seen from any other writing conference. It gives a beginning writer—or any writer—a chance to try out any idea for a book by submitting the first fifty pages and getting feedback from the judges. Not just in terms of being a finalist or even a winner in the contest, but also in comments/advice that can be requested by an applicant. 

I recommend entering the Claymore competition to any aspiring writer I meet who asks for advice.

“Hey, it worked for me,” I tell them.

So it can work for you too. . . 

---

R.G. Belsky is an award-winning author of crime fiction and a journalist in New York City. Belsky has published 20 novels—all set in the New York city media world where he has had a long career as a top editor at the New York Post, New York Daily News, Star magazine and NBC News. He also writes thrillers under the name Dana Perry. And he is a contributing writer for The Big Thrill magazine.