Even though it’s been almost three years since I graduated from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, I still keep in touch with a lot of alums, especially my classmates. Every Friday on our private forum, we celebrate brags–big and small. There have been a lot of big brags this month (some yet to be announced), but there have also been many, many more small brags.
I think that’s so important–celebrating the small brags–because without these accomplishments there wouldn’t be any big brags. You can’t celebrate selling a novel if you don’t first find the courage to send out queries; you can’t send a query letter until you finish a draft of a manuscript (usually); you can’t finish a manuscript until you start a manuscript….and so on, and so on. Our career is made up of a lot of ‘small yays’, and we should celebrate them.
And, we should cheer on others when they have good news. So that being said, congratulations to:
1) VCFA Scholarship and Award Winners
2) Me: I made a blog post before the end of the month–thank goodness for leap year.
3) Greg Leitich Smith and Cynthia Levinson–both are celebrating book launches in March.
(Chronal Engine and We’ve Got a Job–both Junior Library Guild Selections)
4) The Brown Bookshelf for another successful 28 Days Later (because of other commitments, I couldn’t participate this year)
5) Austin SCBWI for hosting a great regional conference.
6) The Friends of Northside ISD Libraries (San Antonio, TX) for developing and hosting the inaugural LibraryPalooza Teen Book Festival.
(YA Author Terry Trueman and I at LibraryPalooza)
7) And congratulations to my kid for not inheriting my laugh (at least not yet).
Thanks for the shoutout!