I am delighted, honored, humbled, and pleased as punch to announce that my short story collection, A Lesson in Manners, has been selected to receive the 2014 Serena McDonald Kennedy Award for Fiction from Snake~Nation~Press. Judge Jacob M. Appel, last year’s winner with The Magic Laundry, says that the stories in Manners display “deep authenticity” and a “keen eye for emotional truth,” and he called it an “extraordinary collection that distills the lives of ordinary people – refreshing, compelling, and moving.”
Well! You can bet I’m going to wrap myself up in those words and hug them to me for a long while. At least until A Lesson in Manners is published in the fall, in which case I’m going to carry a copy with me wherever I go, savoring the long journey these stories have taken to the light.
I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday present.
P.S. Snake~Nation~Press is still accepting entries for the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry and the 2015 Serena McDonald Kennedy Award. Enter your manuscript and support a non-profit, independent press that has been supporting the literary arts since 1989. Or, if you don’t have a manuscript you feel is ready, head over to their online store and buy a book.
