My instincts were right. She had NEWS!!! A quick word of explanation about author life (hopefully you won’t mind the digression) — You spend months and sometimes years working on a novel and then send it out to the world to be enjoyed by the reading public, but for industry validation, there are contests to enter. Italia usually brings the contests to my attention and badgers me, I mean, encourages me until I submit. Such was the case for the Nautilus Book Awards.

The upshot is 7th Grade Revolution silvered in Middle Grade Fiction for the 2018 Nautilus Book Awards!!!

On it’s Guidelines for Entry page, the Nautilus Books Awards states: The Nautilus Mission continues — Better Books for a Better World!
To recognize, promote, and celebrate books that support conscious living & sustainability, high-level health & wellness, spiritual growth, and positive social change & social justice.

“The ancient Nautilus Shell is a symbol of proportional perfection. … It is also the perfect paradox – having survived relatively unchanged for millions of years, the Nautilus Shell is, oddly enough, a symbol for expansion and renewal as it grows increasingly larger chambers throughout its life.” ~ Rebecca Cotton

I am so thrilled and honored to have 7th Grade Revolution place so well in such a prestigious award contest. Past winners of the Nautilus Book Award include, Deepak Chopra, The Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle, Charles, Prince of Wales, Mariel Hemingway, David Suzuki, and Desmond Tutu. I am truly humbled to be in such company.

* Intravenous Immunoglobulin

— IVIG is used to treat various autoimmune, infectious, and idiopathic diseases. IVIG is an approved treatment for multifocal motor neuropathy, chronic lymphocytic lymphoma, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, Kawasaki disease and ITP. In basic terms for me, I have the treatment because my immune system has been compromised in multiple ways — through having CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) and SLL (non Hodkgin’s small lymphocytic lymphoma) in addition to the targeted therapy I have been on which suppresses parts of the immune system as well. The treatment does nothing to stimulate my own immune system, but rather provides those elements my system is not producing to give my body a little fighting power should I come in contact with anything immune system needs to fight off.

To buy 7th Grade Revolution online: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Book Depository | Ebook

The post Along Comes the Nautilus appeared first on Be the Cat.

The awards ceremony was held in Nashville this evening, and I wasn’t able to attend, so waited patiently for the announcement to be posted online. The categories 7th Grade Revolution finaled in weren’t being announced at the ceremony, so I would have been awaiting the online announcement anyway. I felt a little like Alice in Through the Looking Glass when my publisher contacted me with the results. Lewis Carroll said it best:

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”

And the answer to the question about the pigs is YES, they do have wings and were flying around Nashville tonight because 7th Grade Revolution WON in the category of Best Use of Social Medial in Book Marketing. I don’t know about book marketing, but I do like the way Twitter, or as it is in the book QuackerMe, is used in the story. Without the use of social media, the book would have been significantly different. But I cannot claim all the credit for the award.

Without the use of social media in the Exploris Middle School classroom experience, first of all, I wouldn’t have had a book because I would never have heard about the exercise in the first place. But also, the teachers used Twitter in the guise of being reporters/the media to broadcast the events of the classroom to the world. I knew from the very beginning that had to be a part of the conclusion of the story … how social media is now the more immediate news source. So thank you, Karen Rectanus and Exploris Middle School for broadcasting the events via Twitter. It helped shape the book in many ways.

Here is just a part of what Digital Book World had to say about the awards this year:

“Digital Book World is honored to recognize best-in-class achievement across the wide world of publishing, and we’re thrilled to celebrate these distinguished award winners with the publishing and technology community,” said Digital Book World Executive Producer Bradley Metrock. “Congratulations to all of the award winners – we’re proud to showcase your work.”

Click the image below to go to the full article and winners list

The post Digital Book World Awards: Winner appeared first on Be the Cat.

I’d also like to give a shout out to my publishing-mates Gareth Worthington for his WIN in the Science Fiction Category with Children of the Fifth Sun: Echelon, Mary Ting for her Science Fiction Runner up honor for ISAN: International Sensory Assasin Network AND Runner Up honors in Unpublished Manuscript for Jaclyn and the Beanstalk (Vesuvian Books 9.4.2018), and Alexandrea Weis and Lucas Astor and for their Honorable Mention for Blackwell in the Wild Card Category and for Honorable Mention for Death by the River (Vesuvian Books 10.2.2018) in the Young Adult Category.

So I should probably stop staring at shiny gold seals and get some writing done.

The post 7th Grade Revolution and The Journal of Angela Ashby Honorable Mentions appeared first on Be the Cat.

I’d also like to give a shout out to my publishing-mates Alexandrea Weis with Lucas Astor and Mary Ting for their wins in the Horror: Supernatural/Paranormal (Blackwell) and Science Fiction: Post-Apocalyptic (ISAN) respectively.

This is going to be an incredibly short post, because I have some dancing and skipping around the room to do while marveling over the shiny new gold sticker my book can now wear.

The post 7th Grade Revolution – Winner 2018 American Fiction Awards appeared first on Be the Cat.

This is going to be an incredibly short post, because I have some dancing and skipping around the room to do while marveling over the shiny gold sticker my book can now wear.

The post 7th Grade Revolution Finalist in 2018 International Book Award Competition appeared first on Be the Cat.