Top Ten from 2008

Or, more specifically, My Top Ten Literary Highlights for 2008

I’ve been thinking about the best literary things I experienced last year. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Sharing a ride in Claudia’s Hummer with Chuck Sambuchino and listening to him speak to a group of Smith Mountain Lake area writers.
• Seeing my picture on Chuck’s blog. I’m now an avid reader of Guide to Literary Agents.
• Meeting Earl Hamner and listening to him read from Generous Women in his wonderful Virginia gentleman voice.
• Winning the “Vile Pun” division of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (and reading my winning entry on the local public radio station, WVTF).
• Having literary agent Janet Reid mention on her blog that my Bulwer-Lytton winner was her “other favorite.”
• Attending the SCBWI “meet & greet” in Richmond and—while waiting in a long line for the bathroom—talking about horses with Midlothian writer Gigi Amateau (and, a few months later, reading Gigi’s wonderful book, Chancey of the Maury River).
• Starting a kid lit crit group inspired by a conversation with some Charlottesville attendees at SCBWI (their crit group attended en masse) and nit-picking around a kitchen table with Amy T, Claudia, and sometimes Debi.
• Seeing my picture on page 16 of Blue Ridge Chronicles: a Decade of Dispatches from Southwest Virginia, by Richmond Times-Dispatch writer Rex Bowman. (My review is here.)
• Finishing my middle-grade paranormal novel, currently titled Stuck, but I'm not necessarily stuck with that title.
• Hanging out at Peggy Shifflett’s Cottage Curio every month and swapping stories with the other authors, artists, and craftspeople.

Not a bad year, actually. . . .

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