The Whitneys

I attended the Whitney Awards on Saturday and had a grand old time. Forrest and I got gussied up then headed out for a lovely dinner (we both chose the beef--didn't know if we could trust the salmon) and awards ceremony. Here we are, gussified:





And here we are again at the actual event just before receiving the aforementioned beef, which was quite tasty, by the way. (And yes, I stole this picture off of the official Whitney blog feed):



I got to sit by Tony's DB editor, Lisa Mangum, a very nice woman who rejected BoE with a form letter a couple of years ago (and I don't blame her for it--truly--since BoE doesn't fit into DB's marketing niches well at all). She has a new book coming out this year with DB's Shadow Mountain imprint and it's supposed to be really good, so I'm looking forward to reading it. I also sat next to Aubrey Mace, also very nice, and she won Best Romance. She seemed genuinely surprised and it was fun to be at a table with all that positive energy.

We also sat by Ally Condie, author of DB's Freshman for President (among other things) and her husband. Ally had already sent me the nicest email about BoE . . . so I was predisposed to like her :-). But she was very cool, and Forrest was grateful to have another man (Mr. Condie--can't remember his name!) at the table to talk to. Mr. Condie's an economics professor--and one of Forrest's waylaid dreams is to be an economics professor [and isn't that a totally endearing waylaid dream? So much better than famous bass fisherman or something]--so we had a lot of good conversation to keep us company while we ate.

Oh, and Andrew, right after I mentioned that my brother was Anthony Sweat, author of the now famous Why? book, Ally said, "But isn't your OTHER brother the Normal Mormon Husband???. I LOVE the Normal Mormon Husband!" Drew, I think you are officially the most famous among us.

But on to the awards. The banter during the presentations was funny, just like last year. The fantasy writers (Scott Savage, James Dashner, et al) were quite entertaining, with Scott dressing up in drag like Stephanie Meyer. I had to wait until the BITTER END before doing anything nerve wracking, though. I read a little snippet--all the while telling myself to read sloooower, keep it cool, girl--then they announced the winners for my categories. And even though I told myself that I was NOT going to be nervous and I was NOT going to care if I won anything--because it is an honor just to be nominated, and I'm not just saying that--my heart rate was approaching baby rabbit speed.

They announced my first category, Best General Fiction (Whitney rules are you can only win in one category), and that went to Annette Haws. I've heard her book Waiting for the Light to Change is quite good. So then they got to Best Novel by a New Author and my baby rabbit heart kicked up to fetal rabbit heart after they said my name. I'd had in mind some things I could possibly say if I did win anything, but that all went out the window the minute I stood up. I rambled some things about how I was grateful to Parables for taking a chance on the book because it was hard to categorize and I'd gotten a lot of rejections (and then told the story about how one publisher gave me a note that said "I like the book, but short stories are the kiss of death"--don't know if I should have said that. Ah well. That's what happens when you extemporize.) I talked a little bit about how grateful I was for the chance to write and see the book published, then I also said something like "Even if I never have another book published again, I'm so grateful to have had the chance to do what I love--write--and have other people read it," which I also probably shouldn't have said in that way, because it makes it sound like I never intend to write another novel. Which isn't true. What I MEANT to say was that there are so many talented writers in the world who never get a chance to see their books published and that I never want to forget how lucky all of us are to have had that opportunity, and to always be grateful for it. Or something like that. Who knows what I meant. Anyway, I had a number of people tell me they liked my speech, but in my day-after instant replaying, I'm worried the take-away is, "I got a ton of rejections for my book and I will never write again!" Ah!! Where's my time travel machine? Forrest keeps telling me to stop obsessing and that it was a good speech . . . oh, and that I'm crazy. Which is probably true.

But it was a lovely evening, quite exciting, and I'm so grateful to all the people who put so much time and effort into creating such a great event. And now I have a pretty award to put on my shelf:



Thanks to all of you, my friends and fam, for all of your support and enthusiasm during this whole journey with Bound on Earth. Gussified evenings and awards are just frosting on the cake of all your love and overall awesomeness. (And yes, that was a terrible metaphor, but you are my friends and my family and this is my blog, so I can indulge in terrible metaphors and I know you'll all still like me. It's such a relief :-)!