I was disappointed to hear today that I didn't win this year's SCBWI Houston Joan Lowery Nixon Award. But I did get a really lovely email from the illustrious judge and mentor, Kathi Appelt, explaining how hard her decision had been and that she felt my manuscript seemed to be so close to ready for submission to publishers, she wasn't sure how much she could have helped with it. So a lovely morale boost coming on the back of a disappointment. Thank you, Kathi, for your sweet words.
And huge congratulations to the winner, Melissa Morphew, whose manuscript titled The Celestial Omnibus Salvage Yard was nominated by Stephanie Hedlund from ABDO Publishing.
