3 days before my birthday, and I got the most wonderful gift I could ever have wished for. I received the news that my book Cradle Songs: An Anthology of Poems on Motherhood has been chosen by the International Book Awards - Honouring Excellence in Independent and Mainstream Publishing. They are sponsored by US Book News. Cradle Songs won the Best Poetry Anthology Award.
The other good news is that we opened our store on May 1st. it has always been my dream to own an antique store. I was going to call it The Little Shop of Horders, but we decided on Hecho en Echo instead, since we are making many of the items in the store. My specialty is coiled cloth baskets made from recycled clothing and Native American inspired jewelry. Check us out on Face Book. We will be teaching workshops.
I got my cook book back from the editor yesterday for me to go over once more before we lock the text portion of the book, and one of my poems is in the forthcoming anthology Woman in Metaphor: An anthology of poems inspired by the paintings of Stephen Linsteadt. I have 3 more poems coming out in 2 other anthologies.
My novella is almost finished and I have been accepted into the Women's National Book Association critique group.
It looks as if this is going to be an exciting year for me in publishing.