Whitney Award Pictures!!!

I had knots and nerves and butterflies in my stomach during the Storymaker Conference at the Sheraton in Salt Lake City two weeks ago because the culminating event was the Whitney Award dinner Banquet - an event with nearly 300 people all dressed up and two podiums with stairs and microphones and tons of authors with their families as well as editors and agents. Very heart-fluttering!

I wore my purple velvet dress and my purple shoes which made me very tall and wobbly, but I managed the stairs okay without too much slipping. Coming down was harder than going up!

My category, BEST YOUTH GENERAL NOVEL FOR 2010 had some fantastic Finalists and tough competition, and even though I'd had lots of *love* and *kudos* from many people who had read The Healing Spell, I knew that any one of those books would be a very worthy winner, they were that good. I've heard some chatter around the inter-webs that the Youth General Category was a favorite this year and VERY hard to judge. I agree! (Go to this Whitney Link to see all the Finalists!)

It was like the Oscars! Lisa Mangum from Deseret book and Kirk Shaw from Covenant Communications did the presentation of my category and then opened the envelope with the words, "And the winner is . . . " My heart was pounding so hard I could hardly breathe!  ". . . Kimberley Griffiths Little for The Healing Spell!"

Applause! I gasped! I was thrilled, relieved, SO excited!

I manged to make my way up to the stage and gave a shaky acceptance speech. My voice was shaking, but my husband said it didn't sound like it. I said a jumble of words about the long process of writing the book and my editor but there were things I forgot to say and I probably rambled anyway.

Here are some pictures!

Me holding the engraved award. On the left is Annette Lyon who won for best General Adult Novel! 

Her smile is so cute!

 

Walking back to my seat. That very handsome young man is one of my sons.

With Sheila Windley Stanley, part of the Whitney Academy and one of my biggest supporters. I loved getting to know her! Sheila is also a reviewer at LDS Women's Book Review - a very FAB site! 

The Envelope!!!

The Award is an engraved *book* that opens and closes. It's gorgeous.

Award in its gold box!

With Stephanie Black, Winner of the Whitney for Best Mystery!

Thank you to everyone who nominated The Healing Spell, judged it and named it a Finalist, and then voted to declare it the winner! I'm so grateful and thrilled beyond what I can fully express.

Don't forget to nominate books published during 2011! I'll send a link when the nomination ballots open. 

I'm back, Revision turned in - catching up!

Well, um, the subject pretty much says it all . . . ha, ha.

I had a MARVELOUS time at the LDStorymakers conference! Met so many blogger friends, met up with friends from last year, had some great conversations, listened to some amazing workshops!!! (On the Home Page, click the arrow buttons and you'll see me! I just saw that right now for the first time - Wow! It's like I'm really an author!)

AND I WON THE WHITNEY AWARD FOR THE BEST GENERAL YOUTH NOVEL OF 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am THRILLED to pieces about that and I have some fun pictures to show in my gorgeous purple gown and the high heeled purple shoes I coudl barely walk in . . . :-)

More details as the week progresses.

I feel a bit like I'm sick . . . I got home just a week ago and spent a frantic 6 days drafting over 100 new pages for a new plot line and finishing the tearing apart, piecing back together for my YA novel, GODDESS, which will come out in 2012 with Scholastic. A MAJOR re-imagining of the story - but oh, my, it is a *delicious*, forbidden romance!

I sent the manuscript off to my adorable and gorgeous and brilliant editor yesterday and now I'm crawling out from under my rock and blinking in the sunshine and making celebratory cookies, and feeding missionaries for dinner, and catching up on emails and Facebook and blogs, and errands, and paying bills - and got the May issue of SPELLBINDERS DONE.

I'm sort of a red-eyed demon mother/writer/wife right now.

Conference notes coming, pictures coming . . . TOMORROW! Well, or Thursday. See y'all then!