And Now You Must Bow Down and Call Me ... Laureate!!

Okay, so no one I know would EVER bow down in front of me, or call me Laureate, for that matter. A better suggested name has been "smartypants." 

So, they announced the winners for the Governor General's Literary Award on Tuesday November 13, and "The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen" won in the Children's Text category. I had in fact known about the win for about 12 whole days. That's a heck of a lot of secret keeping, and believe me, keeping secrets does not come naturally to me. I did tell a few people, like my mom and my husband and son. And two close friends figured it out when I had to bail on the Leonard Cohen concert on Monday night!

It was a whirlwind couple of days in Montreal, and quite exciting. To be honest, I still can't quite compute that I won a GG. The outpouring of well-wishes has been mind-blowing. I didn't take a lot of photos in Montreal, but here's what I've got:

Linda Spalding (winner in the Fiction category), Kristin Cochrane (from Random House), me and Scott Sellers (also Random House) at the cocktail party on Monday night.

Just before heading on-stage for the announcement - my book, avec gold sticker! As an old friend said, "It STILL feels good to get the gold sticker, doesn't it?" Yes. It does.

Linda and I just before the announcements. She was great fun, by the way - very entertaining, and kind. I know her daughter, talented screenwriter Esta Spalding! And Linda's husband is a fella named Michael Ondaatje ... somewhere deep in my blog I have a photo of Michael, posing with my mom!

And here is perhaps the most exciting photo: It's the golden envelope ... containing my prize cheque!