McMinnville’s own Susan Newby recently won the grand prize in a short story competition, “A Haunted Contest,” on Nashville author J.T. Ellison’s website.Newby’s story, “The Men Without Faces,” has been posted on Ellison’s website and can be seen by visiting www.jtellison.com/tao-of-jt/.Ellison is an international award-winning author of seven critically acclaimed novels, multiple short stories and has been published in over 20 countries.Set in Nashville, Ellison’s successful crime series features Nashville Homicide Lt. Taylor Jackson and includes “All the Pretty Girls” (2007), “14” (2008), “Judas Kiss” (2009), “The Cold Room” (2010), “The Immortals” (2010), “So Close the Hand of Death” (2011), and the just-released “Where All The Dead Lie.”Ellison is the bi-monthly Friday columnist at the Anthony Award nominated blog Murderati, and a member of several professional writing organizations, including International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America and Romance Writers of America. She has an active following on Twitter under the name of @Thrillerchick and a robust Facebook community.A voracious reader and fledgling writer, Newby is a graduate of Motlow McMinnville and MTSU. She is a former news reporter, news editor and editor of the Southern Standard.