Winners Showcase Stage

Welcome to the Winners Showcase Stage!

Each month we feature four national contest winners from our professional communications contest.  If you won first place in the contest and would like to be featured, please contact us at [email protected].

Ilona E. Holland Ed.D

State Affiliate – Delaware

Winning Category – Children’s Book – Fiction

What does winning the NFPW Professional Communications Contest mean to you? 

It is a great honor and much appreciated encouragement to keep writing!

Where can people find your work?  www.ilonaeholland.com , www.browseaboutbooks.com, or Amazon

How can people connect with you? You can find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/_ilonaeholland/

Dr. Ilona Holland served on the faculty at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education for 12 years.   During her career, she consulted nationally and internationally evaluating and designing projects for museums, educational television, software companies, school districts, and private industry. In 2013, Ilona retired and turned her attention to writing children’s books.   Her most recent book The Lost Locket of Lewes, published by the Lewes Historical Society (2018), received the First Place Award in Children Fiction given by the National Federation of Press Women.  In addition, her first book, Buddy Bison’s Yellowstone Adventure, published by National Geographic Kids (2016), was selected by Hoda Kobt of the Today Show as one of her “favorite things” and was just selected for inclusion in the program United for Reading, a world-wide initiative in which deployed American service men and women videotape readings of books for their children over distance.

Karen Feld

State Affiliate – At-Large, New York, NY

Winning Category – Feature Story – Online Publication

What does winning the NFPW Professional Communications Contest mean to you?

I am proud and honored to have been a winner in The NFPW contest since 1982. The recognition is reflective of how important good journalism is especially in today’s world. I have been a member since 1982 and have picked up multiple awards from this group every year since. For many years until its demise, I was active in and an officer of Capital Press Women. Since that time, I have continued to be an At-Large member of NFPW.  I spoke at a couple of the annual conferences and have previously been awarded the Communicator as Entrepreneur Award in 1996 and the Sweepstakes Award in 2000.          

Where can people find your work? Currently, I freelance although I contribute on a regular basis to www.politicalmavens.com; www.NYCitywoman.com; Worldnomads.com; and more.  You can also visit my website at Www.karenfeld.com

How can people connect with you?  You can find me on LinkedIn at http://linkedin.com/in/karenfeld  or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/pupwhisperer

Karen is an award-winning, prolific columnist, editor and lecturer who is a frequent radio and TV guest. She has covered culture and politics, theater and art, health and travel. Karen’s news and feature reporting over the past half a century spans the media landscape with a distinctive storytelling style.

Today, Karen is a contributing writer for NYCitywoman.com, a Fellow for PoliticalMavens.com and freelances for a variety of other publications. Karen served as Washington Editor of the Delta Airlines in-flight magazine and air show for half a dozen years,  Editor of Washington Flyer; and Editor of Incentive Travel Manager. She penned a nationally syndicated column for many years beginning in Roll Call Newspaper and launched The Buzz column in The Washington Examiner.

She is an active member of the following professional organizations:  Maine Writers and Publishers Assoc, The Society of Silurians, The National Society of Newspaper Columnists, The Society of Professional Journalists and The National Federation of Press Women.

Leora Zeitlin

State Affiliate – New Mexico

Category – Radio and Television Interview AND Radio and Television Report

What does winning the NFPW Professional Communications Contest mean to you? 

All of us work hard, long hours to conceive, write, edit, rewrite, produce, and finally present our work to the public. While it’s wonderful to get positive comments from our readers and listeners, it is especially thrilling and gratifying to be recognized by one’s peers — and even more so by such highly accomplished professionals as NFPW members and judges.

Where can people find your work?

My work can be found at krwg.org, and older interviews at https://www.krwg.org/programs/intermezzo. The winning works are at:

https://www.krwg.org/post/memories-leonard-bernstein-we-celebrate-100-years  and

https://www.krwg.org/post/shakespeare-rap-scaffolding-theatre-co-brings-othello-remix-las-cruces

How can people connect with you? You can find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/krwgpublicmedia/, on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/krwgtvfm, or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/krwg

Leora Zeitlin is a writer, editor, publisher and radio host, whose professional life revolves around literature and music. She is the co-director of Zephyr Press, an award-winning literary press based in Boston that publishes contemporary poetry and
prose in translation from Russia, eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere, as well as innovative American literature. She has been involved with Zephyr since its founding in 1980; you can learn more at zephyrpress.org. Leora is also a classical music radio host at KRWG Public Media in Las Cruces, NM, which broadcasts throughout southern New Mexico and into west Texas. She has been hosting her own show, “Intermezzo,” since 2000, and many of her award-winning interviews can be found at krwg.org. She lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico with her family.

Gail Kent

State Affiliate – Virginia

Winning Category – Editorials 

What does winning the NFPW Professional Communications Contest mean to you? 

To be recognized by your own peers is both exciting and humbling. It never gets old!

Where can people find your work?  You can find my work at  www.thebuzzfactoree.com 

How can people connect with you? You can find me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gailkent/, on Twitter @thebuzzfactoree, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheBuzzFactoree/ 

After graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in journalism, Gail Kent started her career as a newspaper reporter and editor, then transitioned into public relations. Gail founded The Buzz Factoree, LLC, a boutique PR and marketing firm, in Newport News, VA, in 2006 and serves as its president. She specializes in working with consultants and experts who want to brand themselves as thought leaders. In the past, she has consulted with a variety of for-profit, government and not-for-profit clients, providing strategic communications planning, traditional and online PR and marketing, content development and social media training and implementation.

She has won more than 250 local, state and national communications awards for her work, and was named Media Advocate of the Year in 1988 and Women in Business Advocate of the Year in 2009 by the Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce. She was Press Woman of the Year for Virginia Professional Communicators in 1989 and received the Career Achievement Award from the Peninsula Women’s Network in 1988.

She is a past president of Virginia Professional Communicators and has served on numerous community and professional boards. In 2008 she earned her MFA in creative writing from ODU.