Me!

That’s right, folks. The Paris Book Festival has posted their annual competition results and I have taken an honorable mention in the General Fiction category. Thank you, thank you very much. I would like to thank all you little people who have helped me get where I am…

Now, the award will only be as good as what I can do with it. If I were the grand prize winner, I would be on a plane to Paris. As it were, I will have to settle with knowing they will be mentioning me in Paris sometime in the next month, at the ceremony, and I will very cooly and casually not be present to accept it. So I will just have to take the acknowledgment and plaster it wherever I can. Cause that’s what you do with an award like this. Milk it.

And bask in the glory a bit, too. Because, after all, I have been validated; highlighted by industry professionals out of over-3000 other books from six languages and around the world as having “general excellence” and “passion for telling a good story” as well as “the potential of the work to gain a wider audience in the worldwide market.” Yeah, that has me written all over it.

Let’s just ignore for right now that I tend to be the queen of honorable mentions. (Honorable Mention for a Young Laureate Award, 4th grade. Honorable Mention for no less than four art categories at Taylor University’s Annual Art Show and Competition, in college. Third Place for poetry, “to me: from my husband, who can not write poetry,” Parnassus literary magazine, 2000. Okay, so that last one’s not quite an honorable mention, but right now is sure feels like the almosts are piling up.)

And just like that, I go from a two-month stint as novelist to award-winning novelist.

Let’s make this a habit.