And the Winner Is...

Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone have won the 2009 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. Here is the press release. [I have to keep rereading to believe it!]

This award is really special. One has only to look at the list of finalists and winners to see it. So many of the writers and books I adored before I ever became a writer.

So they asked me to send "acceptance remarks." Here they are:

I stand in the company of giants. How can I possibly say more than that?

Well, I purport to be a writer of epics, thus I always have extra words. As I am accustomed to spending a great deal of my time in a world that is not present reality, I'm not sure I quite believe I am to join such august company. Perhaps you could all pinch yourselves and email me if you actually heard my name called.

I am terribly sorry I can't be in Los Angeles tonight to take all this in and thank every single person who opened up this world to me. The nun who put Edith Hamilton on the sophomore reading list every year. That college roommate [Yes, you, Kathy!] who shoved her battered copy of Lord of the Rings into my hands in 1968. And that dear friend [Yes, you, Linda!] who persuaded a software engineer whose kids were needing less of her time that writing some email letters in character might be fun, "as it wasn’t like writing a novel or anything."

I am deeply honored that you have found something of truth in my story and seen fit to let my dear Valen hobnob with Merlin and True Thomas, Aragorn, Corwin of Amber, and all the rest.

That's it! I'm psyched!!