The Book-Awards Game of Chance

by Linda Rodriguez

Next
week at this time I will be on my way to Oklahoma for the Oklahoma
Book Awards. My newest book,
Dark
Sister,
is a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award in Poetry. Needless to say,
I am both delighted and excited.

Dark
Sister
is truly a book of my heart, focused on my family and my ancestors,
and since it was published right as I went down hard with this
shattered right shoulder and destroyed rotator cuff and continued
with severe illness this past winter, I have not been able to do what
I would have wanted to do to promote this book. It essentially was
just dropped on the world without much notice, and that has broken my
heart. Consequently, seeing it get this kind of recognition from the
knowledgeable judges of a major award is wonderful. There are so many
fine books published every year that it becomes pretty much a throw
of the dice whether or not your book will have a chance at awards
recognition. I have to admit I have been much luckier in this regard
than most people, for which I am truly grateful.

One
of the happiest elements of this situation is that two dear friends
of mine are also finalists for this book award in other categories.
Sara Sue Hoklotubbe is a finalist in fiction for her fourth Sadie
Walela mystery novel, Betrayal
at the Buffalo Ranch,
a terrific mystery that I had the pleasure of blurbing. Traci Sorell
is a finalist for her beautiful and ALA-award-winning bilingual
Cherokee-English children’s book, We
Are Grateful/Otsaheliga.
We think it may be the first time that there have been three Cherokee
finalists for this book award.

Next
week, I will be traveling down to the award ceremony with lots of
anticipation and trembling. The other finalists have very
high-quality books and simply being included among them is a terrific
honor. Whatever the final outcome of the ceremony, I intend to be
celebrating in a huge way with my friends and the new acquaintances I
will make that evening. That this ceremony takes place in Oklahoma
where I have many friends and relations is simply the icing on the
cake. I intend to have one heck of a good time, with a
much-anticipated visit afterwards to Tahlequah where I spent many
summers with my beloved grandmother as a child.

So
next week at this time, give me a thought and maybe cross your
fingers for me and my lovely book, as well as for my pals, Sara Sue
and Traci. Whatever the outcome, we are going to PARTY—in a
responsible, old-lady way. Given my physical condition, I may come
back a total wreck, but I will certainly be a happy one.

Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
is her 10^th book and is a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her
popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native American
Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited, were
published in 2017. Every Family Doubt, her fourth mystery
featuring Cherokee detective, Skeet Bannion, and Revising the
Character-Driven Novel will be published in 2019. Her three
earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken
Trust, Every Last Secret—and
earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in Kansas City Noir, has been optioned
for film.  

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft
Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City
Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com