As I write this…  I’m likely to spill my cappuccino, scream audibly, ecstatically jump up and down, initiate a seriously infantile happy dance, or perhaps all of the above…  I’m officially an award-winning author!

The other afternoon, as I pushed through the workforce while guzzling Diet Pepsi as if it were going out of style, I took a minute to check the proverbial inbox… and much to my surprise had received a letter from The Editors of Writers Digest.  As I fixated in some hybrid form of unadulterated satisfaction, my eyes scanned quickly over the glowing computer screen. 

A paragraph of black letters and a millisecond later, I was a finalist in the 77^th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition.  A week later, still unsure of my respective category, the certificate finally arrived… and as if by some serendipitous act from the writing otherworld, I’d been one of the lucky chosen (from more than 17000 entries) to receive an Honorable Mention in the Children’s/Young Adult Fiction category!

Insert celebratory dance!