I had a decent year with my writing, wining some awards and releasing the second book in The Art of Being Ugly Series.
Awards
I found out in January that Ugly was an SCBWI Honor Book for the older readers category, which basically is second place. The SPARK Award is for self-published books, but SCBWI is an international organization that a good number of people who write or illustrate for children, from board books through YA, belong to, so the contest is competitive.
In June, I learned that Always the New Girl won first place in the YA category of the National Excellence in Story Telling (NEST) Contest. It was also a finalist in two other contests, the Next Generation Indie Book Award and Book Excellence Award.
Binding Off also finaled in the Next Generation Indie Book Award contest.
Release and Good Review
I released Uglier, book two in The Art of Being Ugly series, on August 1 and received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews soon afterward.
And Finally, Some Special Things for Readers
I should also mention that Ugly and Uglier are both on sale for 99 cents through the end of December.
Also, Uglier is part of a giveaway of 20 YA books where you can win all of them and also a Kindle simply for signing up for author newsletters. It’s open to enter through the end of January, and you can enter here.
Uglier also will be available for free for a few days at the very end of January.