BHG Wins Readers' Favorite Award in Miami & Nicole Gets to See Salmon Rushdie at Miami Book

Whelp, it's about time I wrote another blog post! BLUES HARP GREEN (my YA contemporary novel about growing up, dealing with anxiety and family alcoholism and finding hope in imperfection) won an award at the 2017 Readers' Favorite Book Awards in November in the Young Adult Social Issues category and I got to go to Miami to pick it up! How's that for good news?

And what a wonderful experience it was. I had the honor of meeting so many fabulous authors, including the likes of the wonderful Lisa V. Proulx, Sheri Fink, Derek Taylor Kent, Jacqui Letran and Jose G. Martins, in no particular order. And there were many more! I felt so inspired!

The Readers' Favorite team was amazing and put on an elegant ceremony and a night of author panels.

At one of the panels, I learned about the huge market for coloring books for grownups which inspired a whole new adventure for me (more on that -- Hertha Hedwig Coloring Book Meditations -- in the next post).

I also got to go to the Miami Book Fair and the Readers' Favorite booth where BLUES HARP GREEN was featured along with the other amazing award-winning books. And then, I somehow managed to walk/sneak into a sold out (well, all free tickets gone) talk by Salman Rushdie and pretend I was supposed to be there. I was embracing my inner Stella and Francie (from BHG). That was a real treat! He was so funny, especially reading from his latest book and talking about being on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Again, I was so inspired!