My youngest daughter—Year of the Firefly—just received an Honorable Mention in the Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards. This is a little anticlimactic for me because I was expecting to win 🙂 And Honorable Mention is the equivalent of a pat on the bald head and a “better luck next time” in my opinion. Maybe the judges are looking down their long, literary noses at me because I am an incarcerated writer. Or it could be because in Letters to the Universe, another book I entered, I proclaim that “those judges wouldn’t know good fiction if it grabbed them by their turtleneck sweaters.” I still believe that. Even though On the Shoulders of Giants got first place in 2020, and way back in 2015 With Arms Unbound earned me my first Honorable Mention. It’s all good. I don’t need a judge to validate my life’s work. Old and new readers do that every day. On both sides of the razor wire. (Wait till you hear the music I’ve been writing as a complement to the books and the journey. I can’t wait to play the musical score to my own audiobooks.) One interesting thing about Year of the Firefly is that it accurately predicts January 6^th, 2021. Even though the story is about a young pregnant UWF student in jail. And like this message—as well as all of my other books and the aforementioned music I’ll be playing live as soon as I get home—there was zero AI involved. Wishing you momentum.