There is an award from PEN New England called the Susan P.
Bloom Discovery Award. In years past
when I have entered, I went searching the Internet for information about it because
that is what I do. I search the Internet
for information. It soothes me. A few writers who won the award posted about
it and I hung on those posts as if my life depended on it. I used them to do mental calculations on what
the timeline would be if I happened to be one of the winners.
For the record, I wasn’t one of the winners.
This year, I almost didn’t enter and waited until the last
possible second to do so. Oh, I had a
manuscript. It’s called Dear Rachel
Maddow. It’s an homage to my beloved
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, the book that inspired me to want to be a
writer decades ago. It’s about politics
and a belief in the potential of our democratic process despite obvious reasons
to be cynical. It’s a filial and agapic thank
you to Rachel Maddow whose show has kept me company and kept my brain from atrophying
during my kids’ baby and toddlerhoods.
It is my fourth novel.
At the end of the day, in addition to being One Who Googles,
I am also One Who Enters Things. There
is a writing thing I can enter? There is
a person to query? On it. Boom.
Mic drop. So my One Who Enters
Things tendencies overcame my One Who Is Convinced Submitting Things Leads to
Inevitable Rejection tendencies and this year, the committee chose my book.
There is some irony in this.
I remember when I first started DRM I asked my friend Jen if I should
change the fact that the entire thing is written in epistolary format to Rachel
Maddow. Like, the real living, breathing
human being. Mr. Henshaw, after all, was
actually a fictional person. Jen
said, “Write the story that inspires you
most.” So I did. That story happens to have an MSNBC news
personality as an off page character. I
took comfort in thinking no one would actually read it, ever.
Oh, universe. You
funny, funny gal.
So there it is. It
took tens of thousands of words and more words and rejections in the triple
digits to get here. And it’s amazing to
win the award and when I meet the committee I will probably drool my thanks all
over them and then faint while trying to sneak a selfie with Lois Lowry. But at the end of the day what means most to
me about this book going anywhere is that it is a love letter to Beverly
Cleary, Rachel Maddow, and all of those women who think and create and
inspire. They keep me going. The least I can do for them is to keep
writing books of my own.
If someone lands here looking for information about the
Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award, this is my advice: keep writing the stories that inspire you
most. Keep submitting. Keep submitting even when you are pretty sure
it’s pointless.
Oh, and also: if you live in a place where it is asked of you, vote in
local and national elections. That might
not influence your craft, but it is essential to a healthy democracy.
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