Current Christian Writers Guild Contests

Operation First Novel 2008
Win $20,000 and get published!
Are you the next, new voice in Christian fiction? Now's the time to find out. Enter our Operation First Novel Contest and you could find yourself holding both a check for $20,000 and a copy of your novel. Tyndale House will publish the winner of our contest. Any current Christian Writers Guild student or member is welcome to enter. The deadline is October 1, 2008. (You must join the Guild by September 17, 2008 to be eligible.) Click here for all the details >>>

Operation First Book (Nonfiction) 2008
Win $10,000 and have your nonfiction book proposal considered for publication!
Jerry Jenkins is also looking for the next unpublished author of nonfiction to burst onto the scene. Harvest House Publishers has agreed to review the proposal — at the highest level — for possible publication! This contest is also open to any current student or member of the Christian Writers Guild. (You must be a member by September 3, 2008, to qualify.) Click here for all the details >>>

Last-minute Novel Wins Prize, Publication

Tom Pawlik wins Operation: First Novel in February 2007

by Les Stobbe

      Nearly 400 applauded when Jerry B. Jenkins announced Tom Pawlik had won first place in Operation First Novel. Sponsored by the Guild and Tyndale House Publishers, the fiction contest includes a publishing commitment by Tyndale for Vanish, Pawlik's novel.

      What few in that Thursday evening crowd at Writing for the Soul knew was that The Way Back, Pawlik's entry in the 2004 Operation First Novel contest, had been awarded second place. When no company agreed to publish No Way Back, Tom wrote a second novel proposal, which his agent shopped unsuccessfully to publishers. Pawlik accepted suggestions for a rewrite, repackaged it, and attached a new title. It also received only rejection letters.

      "A month before the deadline for the 2006 contest," Pawlik says, "I decided to finish that novel. I took off a week from work, my wife took the children, and I wrote. As I wrote I printed the pages, and my wife, once the editor of her high school newspaper, proofread them. When I discovered she could hardly wait to read the next pages, I knew we had a good story."

      Pawlik finished the book two days before the deadline and expressed it to Guild headquarters. Then the wait began. A writing dream, ignited at age 10 when a teacher read aloud Charlotte's Web, was about to be fulfilled.

      "I took a creative writing class in high school," Pawlik says. In high school he wrote many first chapters for novels. "Story ideas kept coming, but I was just too lazy to finish them."

      After high school, music became his focus and he joined a worship band. He says from 1984 to 1992 he "didn't even think about writing." In 1992 Pawlik finished a college degree despite working full time. As part of his college work he took another creative writing course, writing a short story that became the foundation for his first novel, The Way Back.

      Pawlik became acquainted with Karen Watson, a Tyndale House editor, through a friend in the band and submitted the manuscript to her. She had an associate read it. Despite a good review, it did not get any further.

      Ten years later Karen Watson participated in reviewing and recommending Vanish for the Operation First Novel award, though Tyndale had rejected an earlier version.

      "Vanish is a suspense-thriller about three strangers who awake one morning to find everyone else has disappeared, and they are being pursued by something not of this world," Pawlik says.

      Married in 1996, Tom and his wife, Colette, have four children and live in Paddock Lake, Wisconsin. He works as an associate market manager for Cardinal Health.