I might be the only author in history to have received a book award for an unpublished novel, then 44 years later, win additional awards for the same novel. One of the oldest clubs for authors is the National Writers Association, founded in 1937, supporting authors both published and unpublished. When I joined in 1980 (then called the National Writers Club), the governing council included Clive Cussler and Jerzy Kosinski. In 1981, I entered the club’s annual book contest for unpublished manuscripts. Genres were the basic dichotomy back then — fiction and non-fiction — whereas today, with so many self-published books on the market, it’s not unusual for genres to be divided into 20 or 30 sub-genres in book contests. To complicate things, some book awards hand out “honorable mentions” to all participants, then pitch an expensive marketing campaign. But even the legitimate contests have proliferated as they aim to help published authors rise toward a major publisher for their future works. And in spite of everything gone ‘internet’ in publishing, the transition to a major literary agent and/or major publisher is usually based on sales figures from the most recent book.

If you read Part One of PROGNOSIS GUARDED (PG), you learned that OU Professor Jack Bickham read my 1977 draft of that book, and anointed it with this: “I don’t know how in the hell you wrote such a nice novel the first time out. I’ve never seen a first book half this good.” After the stars were wiped from my eyes with the publication of COMA by Robin Cook (same story as mine), I began to work on changing the storyline as much as possible to get away from the COMA label. By 1981, I had the version that I recently published in softcover. So, readers today are not reading the COMA look-a-like of 1977, but the revised version of 1981 that was still intriguing enough to warrant a well-known Hollywood agent (Harold Greene) and a NY publisher (St Martins Press). Then, all that stuff fell through as well. This is why the cover of PROGNOSIS GUARDED is the famous Hollywood sign fading into a cemetery (while Part Two relates to Hollywood and literal cemeteries).

When I finally gave up on PROGNOSIS GUARDED, it was the 1981 version that got stuffed in the attic, and I moved on to FLATBELLIES and the beginning of a nice writing career. In fact, I’ve said on many occasions that PROGNOSIS GUARDED is the origin story for FLATBELLIES, the latter being a completely different genre born of my transition away from medical thrillers.

When I uncovered the PROGNOSIS GUARDED manuscript decades later, in 2024, I decided to publish it, along with an explanation as to the bizarre travels the manuscript had taken. I had no idea if it would resonate with today’s readers or not. Certainly, the 1981 version preserved enough of the key elements of a medical thriller (COMA was the first one) that should carry the formula like any good murder mystery.

As a point of interest in this attic discovery, in addition to the only known copy of the manuscript, there was a copy of my results from the entry I had made to the National Writers Club “Book Manuscript Competition.” Oddly enough, the congratulatory letter was accompanied by the score sheet the judge had used. The first paragraph congratulated me on 7th Prize (out of “hundreds”), but it was the score sheet descriptors that would have made Jack Bickham’s original comment seem weak in comparison.

Ten criteria were judged (theme, plot, characterization, descriptions, dialogue, etc), and all 10 had typed comments, all in the superlative. Scoring for each of the 10 criteria could range from any numerical fraction above 0 to 1.0. And with a maximum additive score of 10, my score was….well….a 10. Now don’t ask me why I didn’t win 1st Prize, but I suspect there were at least 6 others who also got 10s, and we were then ranked. Doesn’t matter. What did matter was the P.S. at the bottom of the critique sheet, not part of the official score, where the judge added this: “You may want to find a good agent to handle this since it could have movie or TV possibilities.”

And this was four years after COMA. With regard to that mega-hit, the judge wrote this about my 1981 version of PG: “Your idea, while kin to COMA, is enough different and creative to fly.” (And yet, even with my persistence in pitching PG, rejections would continue another 12 years before I would stick PG in the attic.)

I knew friends wouldn’t believe everything that was happening at this time, so I placed 2 of the key documents in the book, PROGNOSIS GUARDED, Part One — 1) my contract with Hollywood agent Harold Greene, and 2) the letter from Jack Bickham. I chose not to place additional documentation, but if I had, the 3rd document would have been the judge’s scoring sheet from the 1981 competition.

Fast forward from 1981. Same manuscript, only now in October 2024. This time, as a published manuscript, I would enter PG in book contests to see if the same sort of reaction would emerge as had been the case 44 years ago. Much to my surprise, the feedback has been strong, with frantic page-turning near the end as described by readers. Customer reviews on Amazon have been remarkably complimentary, especially noting those reviewers I do NOT know personally. Then, the results from book contests started being announced in 2025, and the reviews that accompanied my awards were quite the surprise. It was like I’d written the book yesterday. The ending seems to grab readers like it did decades ago, and it’s nice to know that my characters are — to quote Paul Simon — are “Still crazy after all these years.”

PROGNOSIS GUARDED book contest results:

1981 — National Writers Club Manuscript Competition — 7th prize (“perfect 10” score) from “hundreds” of entries

2025 — Independent Press Association — Distinguished Favorite in medical thriller genre

2025 — International Impact Book Award — “Winner” (Top Ten Books from 120 submissions) in suspense/thriller genre

2025 — Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist (Top 10%) in suspense/thriller genre

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