I recently had the honor of attending the 82nd annual Ohioana Book Awards in Columbus.
It was such a lovely evening at the Ohio Statehouse celebrating with the other winners, Celeste Ng (in fiction), Jasmine Warga (in middle grade/young adult) and Kelcey Ervick (in a book about an Ohioan) as well as Kortney Morrow who won the Walter Rumsey Marvin grant, given to a writer under 30 who has not yet published a book. Also receiving awards, but unable to attend the ceremony, were Ross Gay (in nonfiction), Saeed Jones (in poetry) and John Scalzi (Readers’ Choice winner).
This was my third time being nominated for the award. Both of my other two picture books, “Adrian Simcox Does NOT Have a Horse” and “Something Good” were nominated in 2019 and 2022, respectively. I was definitely getting used to saying it is an honor to be nominated (and it is!) but it certainly is fun to win.