Katherine Paterson Prize

It's become glaringly obvious to me that the life of a (less established anyway) writer is one of waiting. If you're lucky, after a while you'll forget which agents and editors and journals you're waiting to hear from and move on to interesting projects and laundry. Then you'll be able to have the experience of opening your inbox and receiving a lovely surprise, as I did last week when I discovered that my picture book manuscript, entitled "Something at the Hill," is a runner-up for the Katherine Paterson Prize for Children's and YA Writing, awarded by Hunger Mountain, the journal of the Vermont College of Fine Arts and their guest judge Holly Black. I'm very honored to have been chosen and will post a link when the story is published online in the January 2011 issue of the magazine. Until then you can check out the excellent essays and fiction in this month's issue: http://www.hungermtn.org.