The one I didn’t see coming

Last weekend as I getting ready to attend the San Diego Book Awards I was thinking how ironic it was that I was able to go this year (the last two years there had been major family events on the same evening) when I hadn’t finaled , since the last two years when I couldn’t go, I had. Still, I was happy to attend and cheer on my good friend, Sally John, who had finaled in the General Fiction category. So there she and I were, sitting at the awards ceremony with her dear husband, Tim, watching and waiting for her category to come up. I was ready to hoot and holler for her, elegantly so because I was wearing a nice dress and heels, but the award went to one of the other three finalists. She and I both know that happens in award ceremonies; and she has learned as I have, that it really is enough to be nominated in a category that can have a dozen or dozens of contenders.

And then out of the blue I hear my name being read as one of the four finalists in the Young Adult category for THE GIRL IN THE GLASS. Before I can mentally grasp that fact, I am announced as the winner and therefore expected to rise, walk in the pointy toed shoes that are now hurting my feet, accept the award and say a few words.

You know how sometimes a person will say, when an accepting award, that they really had no idea that they would win and had prepared nothing to say? I can tell you they are quite easily telling you the the truth. I managed to thank my dear high school English teacher, Frank Barone, who told me almost forty years ago that I could write and therefore should do so and never stop, and I might have mumbled a few other things. I wanted to say a line from Christmas Vacation (“I couldn’t have been more surprised if I had woken up with my head sewn to the carpet”) but didn’t. That line is only funny if you’ve seen the movie a jillion times.

My hands were shaking as I held the mike, which doesn’t often happen any more when I do public speaking. I think I was that afraid someone would realize a horrible mistake had been made and of course I wasn’t the real winner. There had probably been an email telling me I had been nominated and which my spam folder had snatched away like spam folders like to do. And I wouldn’t have guessed that GIRL would have finaled in the Young Adult category since I wrote it for the general market. But what I like about this surprising award is that this book could have only stood out as Young Adult worthy if the character Nora Orsini, who is the only young adult in the story, came across as completely compelling. She had the fewest words of anybody in the story. To have won the hearts of the YA judges means a lot to me. Because it means Nora became alive to them, just like I hope and dream and sweat that every character will.

So thank you, thank you, thank you San Diego Book Awards for a wonderful jolt that affirmed me as a writer who wants her stories to resonate beyond the page.

The moral of the story? Be prepared for anything. You never know when you’re going to be glad you wore your Big Girl shoes.

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Prelude to the Christys!

If you write for the Christian fiction market, then you might know that on Monday night, the winners of the 2013 Christy awards will be announced in St. Louis. The Christy is the premier award in Christian fiction, and very hard to win because the field is large and there are so many great inspirational fiction writers turning out amazing books. I’ve haven’t won one- came close once! -but I have many good friends who have. And this year’s slate of finalists is full of wonderful fellow writers, many of whom I am honored to call friend and colleague. Here’s the list if you haven’t seen it yet.

I don’t make predictions about the winners, mostly because I never have time to read all the entries before award night! But I don’t mind making a few comments about the entries that I have read, if nothing else than to whet your appetite for reading them yourself.

Though it would have been nice to be nominated (let’s just be honest here!) I am so very happy for fellow Waterbrookian authors Katie Ganshert and Joanne Bischoff, who were both nominated this year with – get this – their debut novels. I read both of their nominated books for endorsement and I would have to agree that they turned out two wonderfully written books, edited by the amazing Shannon Marchese (she edited all five of my Waterbrook books; one smart cookie, that one).

Joanne, a fellow San Diego Christian Writers Guild member, penned a beautiful tale that I likened to Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly series, which I read thirty years ago. Joanne is nominated in the historical romance category with Be Still My Soul, a tale set in the Appalachian Mountains about a marriage of convenience that gets off to a rocky start. When Lonnie Sawyer’s alcoholic father catches arrogant bluegrass musician Gideon O’Riley stealing a kiss from Lonnie, he forces the two to get married immediately. But the harsh realities of life quickly turn Gideon’s affection to anger. And can I just say the cover is beautiful.

Katie’s Wildflowers From Winter is nominated in the contemporary romance category. In this story, architect Bethany Quinn reluctantly returns to her Iowa hometown for an “in and out” visit—but then her grandfather dies and leaves her his farm. She wants to sell the place and be done with her trailer park past, but that gets complicated with manager Evan Price watching her every move. Another delicious cover by the Waterbrook art dept. (I adored every cover they produced for me!) Here’s what I said for Katie’s book: “Katie Ganshert’s debut novel is wonderfully and lyrically written. Don’t miss this refreshing new voice in book-club fiction for Christian readers.”

In the Contemporary Stand-Alone category, two fabulous writers are represented, Christa Parrish and Chris Fabry. Chris is nominated twice with two books. I’ve read both authors and love their work. June Bug and Dogwood (a 2009 Christy winner) by Chris Fabry are two of my favorite novels. Wish I could say I read the two books that Chris is up for this year. Too many books, too little time. But I did read – and loved – Christa’s The Air We Breathe. She is phenomenal writer. I’ve read everything she’s written and have yet to be disappointed. I’d love to see her win, and since Chris already has one . . .

I will be virtually attending the Christy’s via a Live Blog, which is pretty cool. You just hop into the conversation at showtime and you can virtually hear and see everything with up-to-the-second live commentary. My fabulous agent extraordinaire, Chip MacGregor, will be the keynote speaker. But perhaps the best part of the evening will be the moment when literary agent Lee Hough is presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Lee, who has fought the good fight against cancer with valor and courage, is expected to be going Home to glory very soon. His last day at Alive Communications was Friday, June 14. I’ve never worked with Lee in a client-author relationship, but we’ve had many conversations at conferences over the years. He is every bit the gentleman and kind soul that everyone says he is. His legacy is truly not just the great books he helped get to the marketplace, but rather his generous and giving heart and a faith that never wavered.

That will be the highlight of the night. And deservedly so.

Cutting for Stone: Transported

I am in the stage of writing a new novel where I can think of little else. My mind is as cluttered as my desk. It’s not a good time to ask me any questions that pertain to matters of life and death or hand me a book that is 650 pages long and not related to research.

So when my book club chose Abraham Verghese’s bestselling book CUTTING FOR STONE for this month’s read, I had a little pity party inside complete with unblown-up balloons and sagging streamers. I had heard that it was a phenomenal book and that readers everywhere loved it. But at 658-are-you-kidding-me-pages, I knew there was no way I could find the time to read it when I’ve got ten books about London during World War II that I simply must get to or the writing machine will come to a screeching halt. I didn’t see how I could do it.

I had the book at home already. It had been on my towering TBR pile for a year. I decided to just give it a go. Enjoy as much as I could, skip the book club gathering for June, come back in July with the next pick, and hope it was do-able.

But I was transported on page 1 to a different place; a place where I couldn’t see not finishing it. I was so drawn to the characters, especially the narrator, Marion Stone, that I simply had to know what became of his life. As the research books gathered dust, I came to the heady conclusion that perhaps I was preparing to write after all, by reading this novel instead of all those history books. Verghese had done with beautiful but simple prose what I was trying do every time I sat down to write: Draw my readers into my make-believe-world and convince them it’s real enough to care about.

The story in a nutshell is this: Twin brothers, Marion and Shiva Stone, are born of a “tragic union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, and bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.But it’s love, not politics — their passion for the same woman — that will tear them apart and force Marion to flee his homeland and make his way to America, finding refuge in his work at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him, wreaking havoc and destruction, Marion has to entrust his life to the two men he has trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.” (from the author’s webpage).

It was an absolutely delicious book, an all-time favorite for me, so rich in sensory details that I can’t wait to head to San Diego’s Asmara Eritrean Restaurant and try all the food mentioned in the book.

And quotable lines? Lots. Here are a few faves:

“Wasn’t that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted”

“The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.”

“The key to your happiness is to…own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don’t. [Otherwise] you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”

The most amazing thing, and that which I will take away most as a writer, is the deft way Verghese fed me nearly 700 pages of story and left me feeling like I had only just begun to eat when the meal was done.

Archive: June 28, 2013

The one I didn’t see coming

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Prelude to the Christys!

Cutting for Stone: Transported