Meet Jeffrey Ricker - SWF22 First 5 Pages Sci-Fi/Fantasy Genre Prize Winner
Jeffrey Ricker is the SWF2022 First 5 Pages Prize Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre winner with his submission from his novel Harvest. A book that starts off with a bleak forecast for the future of mankind, encroaching natural disasters, and an era of intriguing new communications devices,, and transportation options are already evident within the first few pages.
It’s a lot to convey in just the five first pages, but we also get a quick sense of sibling rivalry, and a bitter feud, the obligations to family and traditions, the dedication to working the land, and a world that has left such concerns in a wake of dust or floods.
Unfortunately, Jeffrey was not able to join us in person at SWF22, but happily, he is already planning his trip to Stockholm this year, in order to attend the Stockholm Writers Festival in person. It’s a beautiful city, and Stockholm in August is usually pretty incredible with the long summer days, so we think he’s going to love it here! We’re really looking forward to meeting Jeffrey, and of course, in the meantime, we also want to find out what’s been happening with Harvest since winning the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre in our competition.
Before we get to that, just a reminder that the Stockholm Writers Festival 2023 First 5 Pages Prize opened on January 2nd, 2023 and will close for submissions on Sunday, March 12th, 2023. Be sure to enter with your first five pages and secure your chance to win $1,000 USD, a weekend stay in an elegant Stockholm hotel, a full festival pass, and an agent pitch session!
You can connect with Jeffrey on his website at: Jeffrey-Ricker.com Or on Instagram at: @jeffreyricker
First of all, congratulations on your win! What an absolute thrill it was for us to see the sheer number of quality entries for the SWF22 First 5 Pages Prize, and then for us to finally get the results of the top five genre winners, and the grand prize winner was incredibly exciting. We’re really interested to find out how it impacted you, and your writing. So, let’s start there: How did you feel after submitting your first five pages and officially entering into the contest?
Thanks for the congratulations! How did I feel after submitting? Honestly, I don’t remember. I can say, though, that when I enter contests, generally I expect to lose. When I’m submitting to contests, magazines, publishers, etc., I set my goal as gathering as many rejections as possible. I figure how often I submit is the part of the process I have control over, not how often my work is accepted.
During the judging period, were you feeling confident, or were you plagued with doubts?
Here’s where it’s probably helpful that I’m so forgetful; once I’ve sent in a submission, I usually forget about it. If I didn’t do that, I’d probably be plagued with doubts, yes. (I have enough trouble with that in a general sense.)
Mingling on the concourse at the Stockholm Writers Festival 2022
What went through your mind once the long and shortlists were announced, and your entry was included?
My first thought was surprise: “Oh that’s right, I forgot I’d submitted that!” Once the surprise wore off, I was very pleased to be longlisted. A writing career can look from the outside like not a whole lot is going on, and moments of validation like this are reassuring guideposts during those periods. I didn’t really expect to get past the longlist, so when the shortlist was announced, I was genuinely surprised, not just surprised in the forgetful sense.
Finally, when the prize winners were announced, how did you learn the news, and what was your initial reaction?
I found out via email, and my first reaction was to tell my partner, “Holy $%^&, I won!”
How did you come up with the idea for the piece you submitted?
Harvest is a book I’ve been working on for quite a long time. I originally wrote a completely different science fiction novel, and the only thing that carried over from that was the main character’s name, Rebecca. The idea came up first as an image of someone dragging the toe of their boot through rust-colored dirt, and it grew from there.
What inspires you in your writing?
Anything. I can be inspired by a random image, someone walking down the street, an overheard snippet of a conversation. Reading is probably the biggest source of inspiration for me, though.
This competition is tough, because it comes down to grabbing the judges attention within those first five pages, and that means top-notch writing and editing - can you talk about your editing and revision process?
Stockholm’s iconic City Hall, home of the Nobel Prize Awards Dinner
The piece I submitted has gone through quite a number of edits and revisions. I worked on this novel for my thesis in graduate school and it went through some pretty heavy revisions at that time, thanks to invaluable feedback from my thesis advisor, Maureen Medved, and second reader Annabel Lyon, both of whom are fantastic writers. Since then I’ve received some very helpful feedback from a former literary agent and others, which led to the current draft.
How has winning this prize and the recognition from the Stockholm Writers Festival influenced your writing in the following months?
The most beneficial thing that awards and recognitions like this provide me is encouragement. It would be great, maybe, to say that I’m self-motivated all the time, but the truth is it’s reassuring to have someone basically say, “You’re on to something. Keep going.”
We’re curious about the status of your novel now, as part of the prize, you were able to meet with an agent for a pitch session - how did the agent pitch meeting go?
The agent meeting went great. We discussed positioning of the manuscript in the overall market and reviewed my strategy. Right now, it’s on submission to some agents. Keep your fingers crossed.
And the Reedsy $100 Credit - did you make use of that so far, or is that still a pending ’next step’ so to speak?
I may save that for my current work in progress, which is a near future speculative young adult novel.
You weren’t able to attend the festival in person last year, but have you considered attending in the future?
I’m hoping to make it to Stockholm for the festival this year. Fingers crossed!
Finally, do you have any advice for aspiring writers on entering the SWF First 5 Pages Prize?
Send in your work! I was going to add “if you’re sure it’s the best you can possibly make it,” but honestly, self-doubt is often my biggest obstacle in that regard, I think. Maybe that’s the same for others. If you can relate to that, maybe you and your work are ready and you’re holding yourself back. Maybe, like me, you’ll never feel “ready.” Send it anyway. The act of getting your writing out into the world can be fulfilling in its own right.