A Very Big Day

I had a blog post already written for today, which I will post next week. My apologies if you were needing the Gift Like A Popstar holiday shopping list for your weekend trip to the mall. Instead I wanted to take a moment to appreciate just how amazing yesterday was for this unknown author from southern California.

I started my day like any middle school mom: packing lunches, doing the school run and drinking coffee. But once my family left the house, I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Mike Brigg on his television show Briggs on Books on Central Valley TV. Every opportunity an author has to tell readers about their books is gold when one is trying to build a readership, so this was a very big deal for me.

Then, after the show, I received video footage of my debut novel, Rising Star on the Times Square Tower Billboard in New York! Rising Star won three awards in the 2023 Fall BookFest Awards in the categories of Best Artistic & Technical Fiction Series, Best Young Adult – Literary & Coming of Age, Best Young Adult – Social Themes. It was honored with many other winners with a Billboard advertisement that ran all day on December 13^th.

I cannot tell you the enormity of such an honor. I could barely concentrate for the rest of the day, the idea of my book cover being seen by almost a million pedestrians going about their business at one of the busiest intersections in the United States. That billboard was something that surpassed my wildest ideas of what I could achieve as a mom who writes. It will be something that I always remember.

And in all of the excitement of these two events, I discovered that Falling Star won 2^nd place in General Fiction and Honorable Mention in the categories of YA Fiction and Fiction Novel for the 2023 Royal Dragonfly Awards. 

Mike Briggs mentioned in our interview yesterday that awards are sometimes the difference in him choosing to read one book over another, especially if the writer is  someone he hasn’t heard of. I choose to participate in awards contests because as someone who isn’t a big name, recognition from a contest means that my writing has been measured against hundreds of other books and was recognized. An honorable mention, a first or second prize – they all mean something in my writing was worth remembering or stood out. As a writer that’s all you hope for – to make that connection with the reader.  

As I continue to work on my 4th book, these recognitions bolster my confidence as struggle to create a slew of new characters and build a new world in a different genre. But there’s something you should know – no matter how many awards an author wins, their confidence is usually set back to zero when starting a new project…the joys of writing.

Happy Thursday📚💕