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Category: Announcements

Community Klepto is the Texas Author Project winner!

I’m still grinning ear to ear from the announcement that Community Klepto was named the adult fiction winner of the 6th annual regional Indie Author Project contest for the great state of Texas! Up until now Community Klepto has only been a bridesmaid – being a finalist many a time for several awards but never the bride – so I’m thrilled to finally be named a winner!

And I get to share the honor with another Austin author, who won the young adult prize. During the ceremony, when they announced me as a winner, they also mentioned that I have a new book in the works, so I guess I need to wrap that up, too…

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Community Klepto is an Indie Author Project finalist!

I just got word that Community Klepto is a finalist for the great state of Texas \m/ in the Indie Author Project’s 2023 regional contest! It’s also part of the official collection for the Indie Author Project, and will get put in even more public libraries than it’s already in! The announcement ceremony for the regional contest to kick off Indie Author Day is Friday, November 3 – I’ll be there hoping to hear my name! Join me to hear the winners get announced at the Indie Author Day reception.

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Enter my giveaway for Community Klepto on The StoryGraph

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day to all who sea-lebrate! Not only is it one of my favorite obscure holidays; it’s also the first day of my latest giveaway for a treasure chest of five signed paperback copies of Community Klepto on The StoryGraph. So you don’t even have to pirate my book for a free copy… you just have to enter the giveaway to get a copy of a book about a hilarious gym pirate working out her booty and stealing everyone else’s.

Enter between now and OctobARRRGH 18th!

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I’m a Readers’ Favorite winner!

The Readers’ Favorite annual book awards contest is one of the biggest ones out there, with close to 100 contest categories. It’d been so long since I entered (I tend to throw my hat in the ring at either the first possible second or the last) that I honestly forgot I was still in the running, until my publisher’s office wrote to tell me I’d won as a finalist in the humorous fiction category!

Thrilled to display yet another Community Klepto merit badge on its beautiful cover!

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My work in progress is already a finalist!

I had a self-imposed deadline of finishing the first draft of my newest manuscript by my 41st birthday, which is why I’ve been a little MIA as I write and write and edit and polish. My birthday also happened to be just a few days before the deadline for the 2023 Writer’s League of Texas manuscript contest, so I decided to enter it, looking forward to getting some early feedback of things I could work on as I am knee-deep in my editing phase.

Since it was a first draft, I went in with very low expectations, so imagine my shock when I receive an email today congratulating me on being named one of the 5 finalists in the romance category (yes, satire romance is still romance)! It’s kind of a big deal, y’all… my new book’s already getting accolades, and I haven’t even finished it yet.

And since it’s on the internet, it’s as good a time as any to announce the (working) title for my satirical romance novel – DON’T GIVE ME GRIEF. Wish me luck in the final round, and check out all the other finalists in this year’s contest; word on the street is the competition was fierce!

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I’m on Drinking With Authors!

Oh, hello! You came to find me, but today I am over on the Drinking With Authors podcast where I have a full interview and a bonus literary briefs episode. Check out my episodes and like/share/subscribe/sacrifice a virgin because the podcast is hilarious.

Listen to the full interview and the literary briefs wherever you get your podcasts

Watch the full interview and the literary briefs on YouTube (my hair looked great that day)

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Community Klepto is a Montaigne Medal finalist!

And a brief treatise on book awards in general…

Today, the Eric Hoffer Book Awards posted their list of finalists for the Montaigne Medal – an “additional distinction awarded to the most thought-provoking books” – and color me surprised, Community Klepto made the list! It feels a little strange seeing my book, with all its jokes about naked old ladies and self-motorboating, in a list among PhD-level nonfiction, but I am honored that the judges found it thought-provoking enough to nominate it for the prize.

There are a lot of book award programs out there, some good, some great, and some little more than a scammy money grab. There’s no manual that tells you which awards to apply for, and some don’t even tell you what criteria they’re judging on, so it’s all a bit of a gamble on the part of the author. The average out of pocket cost for award submissions is about $60, so while it’s not an individually expensive gamble, once you apply for half a dozen of them, they add up pretty quick.

The first award program I applied for, I did so in two categories, both of which you of course have to pay for separately: best cover and best title. Because, you know, both of them are pretty badass. I lost both, and to rub a little salt in the wound, one of the titles I lost best title to was “Bittersweet”. I still can’t roll my eyes hard enough, but congratulations to “Bittersweet” or whatever. After that, I lost another award that said it took reviews into account to a book that had only 10 reviews. Justifiably, I think, I was feeling pretty down on book awards and wondered why I bothered putting my name (and money) in all the book award hats I did.

So I was a little floored when I got an email saying that my book was a finalist for a prize I didn’t even enter. Honestly I wondered if it got sent to me by mistake, but nope – my name and the title of my book (which, let’s be honest, is SO much cooler than “Bittersweet”) were right there, plain as day, and when they posted the list of finalists this morning, my name and book title were there, too, so it’s official!

My hat’s still in the ring (why do all these metaphors involve hats?) for a few more awards, and chances are good I will likely lose a lot of them. But I’ve got a win here, and I’ll take it.

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