Eleanor Taylor Bland Award Reaction!
Here’s a link to the official press release about the 2021 Eleanor Taylor Bland award winners. There was a mix-up in communication with the roll-out team, so as of posting, my name (and the other runner ups) aren’t listed on the website yet, but the main grant winner D. Ann Williams deserves our praise and celebrations and I’m sure we’ll be added soon.
You can learn more about my novel The Shadow Sister by visiting my Writing page. It also has a link to sign up to my newsletter and information about my agent for interested editors.
If you’d like to see my unfiltered reaction to learning about being picked, I’ve uploaded the video I texted my friends immediately after reading the email to my author TikTok page.
Transcript:
Hello YouTube friends! It’s been a while. I’m still dealing with the same financial and housing issues that have prioritized my attention for so long, but I’m here today to share really exciting news for a change.
Since late this spring, I’ve been working on a new book idea that I feel really has potential. When I sent it to friends to read, they read it in a single sitting and loved it and my agent is really positive about its potential for submission to publishers. I can’t tell you too much about it yet except that it is a young adult thriller novel about two sisters, one of whom goes missing, and that, for the first time in a long time, I feel truly seen in this project. A friend said “I can feel how much you love this book in every sentence I read.”
This book feels like something special.
So much so, that back in April/May, when I was still waiting to hear back from my agent about whether she even liked it or not—I submitted this book to a grant award called the Eleanor Taylor Bland Award. It’s an annual grant of $2,000 run by the Sisters In Crime organization, given to an emerging writer of color. It’s meant to help support a writer in crime fiction writing and building a career as an author. Last year’s winner sold her debut novel and film rights in a seven figure deal and the one before that just launched her debut this spring.
I didn’t expect to hear much back from it except a rejection letter sometime in the summer, but the application was free so I figured I would shoot my shot. I didn’t tell anyone I applied except the friend that helped me polish my pages.
Something I haven’t had the opportunity to tell you guys in my absence is that I’ve been going through some trauma related to my writing career these past few years and only in the past year or so have I finally been able to truly begin to heal.
Submitting to this grant was the first time I put my writing out there to be judged by anyone other than my agent since my trauma, and this book in particular was the first one I took risks to create again. I put the most raw parts of me in this manuscript. I overcame my fear of being too much, too little, and not enough.
So… last week, when I received an email from the committee, I fully expected it to be a form rejection. I couldn’t believe it when the words “the judges have made their selection” were followed up by “I am pleased to tell you that you were selected as a runner-up.”
I read the rest of the email in a daze, taking in that out of what I’m sure was an overwhelming amount of entries, the national board of Sisters In Crime chose me and my book as one of the five most compelling entries aside from the single grant winner. I was told not to post anything publicly until they announced everything in their official press release, but I texted all my friends and cried in the bathroom for about an hour.
I know it may seem silly to be this excited and honored over coming in as second place, but this does not feel like a disappointment to me. As of filming this I do not know who the other winners are, but I am so excited to celebrate and support them.
Of course, a grant of $2,000 would have been very helpful to me, but I’m equally excited about the free membership to Sisters In Crime and writer resources that I get as a runner-up. It includes monthly webinars on writing craft, which as you know, is pretty much my favorite thing.
What I am most happy about is the fact that someone outside of my circle—an awards committee looking for the best of the best and swamped with so many stories—looked at my book and saw something worthy of accommodation. After working so hard just to believe in myself again, it feels incredible to know that others see my potential too.
If you are watching this video, that means the award details are live and I’m probably screaming about it on all my other social networks, so please come and party with me. And please stay tuned and patient to hear more about this book and my journey by clicking subscribe and signing up for my newsletter, which will be linked in the description.
Thank you so much for watching! I’ll see you soon. Bye.
