The Booker Award & the Versatile Blogger Award

Hey y’all, it’s award time!

The lyrically lovely writer Asha Seth over at Amidst Books presented me with the Booker Award last month.  Asha has a beautiful writing style; definitely stop by her site and say hello.  I am so honored that she thought my blog worthy of this award!  I have been putting off accepting the Booker Award on this blog because it asks me to choose my top 5 favorite books, which is excruciatingly like choosing a favorite child.  But I decided to bite the bullet and do it.  The rules for the Booker Award:

The Booker Award is for book and literary blogs that are at least 50% about books, reading, etc.  On being awarded with the Booker Award, you must share:

• Your top five favorite books.  Mine are:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. The whole Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
5. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

• Your most favorite author (and why).  My favorite author is JK Rowling.  Her tight plotting is masterfully done, and I love her amazing characterization and world-building ability.
• Your favorite genres.  I read everything, but lately I’ve been reading lots of YA fiction (it’s like market research for my writing…).
• Give this award to 5 or more bloggers (see below) and let them know with a comment.
• Show this award off on your site and link back to whoever gave it to you.

I’m awarding the Booker Award to these fantastic literary blogs  (should they choose to accept) :

• Turtle and Robot
• Shar Mohr
• Sarah Says Read
• Words for Worms
• CT Westing
• Mandy Eve Barnett

The amazingly warm and friendly writer Pish Nguyen over at Blog of Loveliness has awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award.  Yay!!!  Definitely drop by Pish’s awesome blog and say hello.  The rules for the Versatile Blogger Award are as follows:

• Display the award certificate on your website
• Announce your win with a post and link to whoever presented your award
• Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers
• Drop them a comment to tip them off after you’ve linked them in the post
• Post 7 interesting things about yourself (see below)

I’m awarding the Versatile Blogger Award to these deserving blogs below (should they choose to accept).  I’m breaking the rules and only choosing 6:

• Small Group of Thoughtful People — My good friend Melanie writes a couple times a week about amazing things people are doing in the world.
• Dr. Doyle’s Editorial and Critique Services — Love Dr. Doyle’s thoughts on writing and editing!
• Barren to Blessed — This blog is full of heartwarming adoption stories.  A little bit of a tearjerker…
• More Cowbell — Jenny Hansen’s hilarious author-techie awesomeness blog.
• Jet Eliot — a fun traveling mystery writer’s blog
• Full Time Writer Mom — I love this blog’s open, honest writing style

I am ending with 7 things about me for the Versatile Blogger Award:

1. My favorite color is burgundy, but I don’t like the color red.
2. I have a twin brother.  It still amazes me how often people will ask, “Are you identical?”  Well, I’m a girl, and he’s a boy; what do you think?  Goodness.
3. When I was little, I had a Southern accent (I was born in the South, after all).  There are home videos to prove this.  Sometime after we moved to Florida when I was a kid, the accent ran away, but I can still pull it out of my back pocket whenever I want.
4. I worked at an overnight Girl Scout camp every summer for 10 summers starting when I was a teenager, including a few summers as assistant director, plus a week here and there for a couple summers beyond that.  Leaving teaching put a dent in my ability to work at camp.
5. As hinted at in #4, I am a HUGE advocate of technology-free summer overnight camps.  Not only are they cheaper than camps that have air conditioning, they teach your child independence.  No matter what a kid grows up to be, she will need confidence and people skills, two things camp builds in abundance.
6. I love Bananagrams.  So fun.
7. Linguistics fascinate me.  I have hinted to my man that an OED might be a good gift someday.  This is perhaps a holdover from my days as an English teacher/copy editor/Creative Writing major.

Happy Friday, all!