This One's For Mom...

Not a bad way to end one week and begin another --

I won the Holt Medallion for Rescued by Mr. Right and the More than Magic Award for "Twelve Days" in Sugar and Spice. While I was super excited about the More than Magic Award (I was also a double finalist in two other categories in that award), it was the Holt that meant the most.

Not just because it was my first time entering. Not just because I won. But because Rescued by Mr. Right was the book that won.

That's the book, if you all remember, that I wrote while my mom was dying that takes place in the city where my parents met, that deals with a woman who took care of her parents until they died. It's sort of the story of how my grandparents met (my grandfather was a boarder at my grandmother's house). It is, in other words, the book of my heart. And the hardest book I ever had to write.

For that one to win an award that stands for Honoring Outstanding Literary Talent is...

Humbling and wonderful. I can only hope that Mom is looking down and seeing this, and hopefully sharing in my joy, because Mom, this one is for you.

Shirley