In keeping with my duties as a participant in the 24-hour news cycle, I feel I must blog about this immediately.Shannon, Jessica and I decided to sit together, proving once again that writers of young people’s lit are the most fun and sociable of all writers! The winners of this year’s Utah Arts Council Original Writing competition went up on stage first and got their certificates, while UAC Literary Arts Manager Guy Lebeda read snippets of the judges’ comments. The funniest moment of the night was when Guy mixed up the the judges’ comments for a dark coming-of-age YA novel with those for a book called The Easter Bunny of the Southwest. Confusion, then hilarity, ensued.

After that, Idris Anderson was honored with the May Swenson Poetry Award for her collection Mrs. Ramsay’s Knee. Harold Bloom was one of the judges this year!

Then, the Utah Book Award was given in four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s/YA. Christine Allen-Yazzie won for fiction, Frederick H. Swanson for nonfiction, Kenneth W. Brewer for Poetry, aaaaaand: Shannon Hale for children’s/YA! (For Book of a Thousand Days.) We all got plaques and our pictures taken. Here is the least blurry one I have of me (Shannon is behind me with her son, and that is Jessica in the pretty rose skirt):

Then! Just when you feared it was all over, Utah music group Red Rock Rondo came out and played a few pieces from their Zion Canyon Song Cycle.

On to the reception! Where a number of horrified authors and book types encountered yet another wineless Utah event. A gathering of writers with no wine is sort of sad, because some writers are so much less socially awkward when they are not completely sober. Some! I of course am not advocating reliance on mind-altering substances to get through life! Ho ho no. And most definitely not for anyone under 21. The punch and snacks were good, and the company great, and I really appreciated that a bunch of friends made it out. Thank you! Next stop: UCTE, then the book fest. Then I am taking a day off.