As you might know, I won a Christy (what I call the Oscars of Christian fiction)  at the end of last month in St Louis. It was surreal. Here are two reasons why:

Christy winners ’13

I’ve dreamed of winning a Christy Award ever since I dreamed of writing novels. To be standing up there with many, many authors, agents, and editors who had helped me and inspired me was a thrill.

In 2002 I read a book that utterly captured me: Arena, by Karen Hancock. It truly is Pilgrims Progress for this age. I went on to read Karen’s Legends of the Guardian-King series and loved them too. She became one of my favorite authors.

Karen Hancock and James L. Rubart

On awards night they gave out a Lifetime Achievement Christy to Karen. Yep, she was there was on stage handing out the Christys to all the winning authors. So cool to get my award from an author I’ve admired for a long time.

Bad high five with Susie Warren

Also making the night special was that after six nominations, my great friend Susie Warren final won a Christy! Way to go Susie!

Susie Warren, me, Tosca Lee

Okay, enough celebrating … gotta get back to writing.