It’s 2 a.m. and I am exhausted but feel it would be plain wrong of me to go to bed without blogging just a little tiny bit about tonight’s events.

As I’m sure you know by now, Sherman Alexie is the winner of the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature! He was the first winner announced and gave a moving and beautiful speech that set the bar high for the other three winners: Robert Hass for poetry, Tim Weiner for nonfiction, and Denis Johnson for fiction. There were a few minutes in there (as I quietly slid my just-in-case acceptance speech—meticulously edited to the requisite two minutes—back into my purse) that I appreciated M.C. Fran Lebowitz’s words about how you can say it’s a “win-win” all you want, but when you are the “non-winner,” you understand that it really isn’t win-win, at least not in that moment. (Seriously – I have new respect for Oscar ”non-winners” because the camera, as it were, is on you and your smile muscles start to tremble and then you’re all, “People will mistake my weary, trembling smile muscles for tearfulness and maybe I am a little tearful but I’m also happy and they kind of, like, said my name wrong but it’s okay because everyone knows my real name at least I hope they do and really, stop looking at me, there is someone on stage giving an acceptance speech!”) Soon the non-winner feelings passed, and once again I was simply amazed that four years ago I was sitting at the Salt Lake Public Library hearing Sherman speak, just as a normal fan and an unpublished dreamer, and if you had told me then that in four years I’d be sharing a National Book Awards experience with him I’d say you were high.

And the rumors are true: YA writers are the coolest, funnest, nicest, most gracious and wonderful people in the world. Brian Selznick, Kathleen Duey, M. Sindy Felin, and Sherman…well we all rocked, that’s all there is to it. In addition, the judges could not have been more generous and kind with their words and warmth after the awards when they finally got to interact with the finalists. (I actually ran into judge Scott Westerfeld halfway through the dinner on my way back from the bathroom and I was trying really hard not to read his face or look into his eyes. I felt like a suspect looking at a juror. If he makes eye contact is that bad or good? Is he fiddling with his tux because he has to adjust it or is it some sort of tell? He looks uncomfortable…I should go back to my seat and spare us all!)

My beloved agent and folks from my Little, Brown family kept giving me hugs and kisses and kindness, and I kept starting to cry a little and I think they thought it was about those “non-winner” feelings, but it mostly wasn’t. It was that I was very, very moved to be there and “receive the message,” as judge James Howe put it. I felt a lot of love for my book, and for me, and that’s just the kind of thing that makes me cry.

Now it’s 2:30 and I’ve got to go to bed.

Here’s a little article in School Library Journal about yesterday’s teen press conference – which was awesome and I want to blog all about it later.

Meanwhile, here I am with my editor, reflecting the camera flash like so much winter snow, but happy, happy, happy.