So the other day I opened up my e-mail. Subject: Moonbeam Medalist Update – please respond. Turns out that, although I’d entered the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards months ago, I had somehow also unsubscribed from their e-mail list. “We want to be sure you’ve heard about winning a Moonbeam Award,” the e-mail said.
Congratulations on being a 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Medalist!
Is this real, I thought? Is this some kind of a weird, generic e-mail that everyone got? Still, my heart quickened. I couldn’t even remember exactly what category I was entered in. I opened up the link to see the results. After a quick glance over the winning book covers, I didn’t see mine. For a moment I thought I was right–that it was a mistake. Then I scrolled through at a slower pace, and I realized that the silver and bronze medalists were also listed next to the gold medalist’s cover in their group. I read through each one, until, finally, beneath Best First Book, I saw BRONZE: Call of the Sun Child by Francesca G. Varela. In hindsight, I really should’ve just clicked “control-f” and found my name that way, but, hey, I found it anyway! And I’m grateful and astounded that I won an award. My third-grade self–who wrote sprawling, sloppy books with titles like “The Little Snail” and read them to her classmates–would be happily surprised to know that, by 21, she would be an award-winning author. I still can’t believe it myself!
Want to learn more about my young-adult novel, Call of the Sun Child? Visit my website!
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