English professor Dana Carpenter wins national award for debut novel

Lipscomb English professor Dana Carpenter won the 2014 Claymore Award, which has earned her a fast track to debuting as an author. Carpenter knew she wanted to be writer since she was a little girl. However, she wanted to have a more stable career, so Carpenter earned her Ph.D in English. Carpenter teaches creative writing and American literature at Lipscomb. About two years ago, Carpenter was preparing for a sabbatical. She planned to write a novel during that time. A character named Mouse, who is the main character of her novel Bohemian Gospel, had been in her head for a while. She started writing, and within six weeks, she had a 400-page novel. It took a year for Carpenter to complete the process of editing and finding an agent. The Bohemian Gospel manuscript was sent to several publishers, but no one wanted to take a chance on a first-time author. In August, Carpenter entered Bohemian Gospel into the Killer Nashville conference. Killer Nashville is a writer’s conference for new writers to get their manuscripts into the publishing world, and it is the third largest conference in the nation for thriller and mystery writers. At the conference, Carpenter took home the top prize, the Claymore Award. By September, she sold her book to Pegasus Books. “I went home and emailed my agent to tell her I had won the award,” Carpenter said. “She emailed some editors at publishing houses we hadn’t heard from yet. Suddenly, there was a flurry of activity, and everyone wanted the book.” Bohemian Gospel is set in 13th century Bohemia, which is what we would call...