On November 8th at 1:05 pm I took a drink from my water bottle, placed it on the floor next to the podium, attempted a smile at the roomful of friends seated in front of me, and began what I’d been dreading for the last eleven months.

Late last December I received notification from the Delaware Division of Arts that I’d been awarded the Emerging Professional Fellowship for Literary Fiction for 2019. I cried. Right when you think you can’t take one more rejection, something like this happens and gives you renewed hope. Somebody liked my writing. Receiving this fellowship, more than anything, gave me confidence in my skills and the encouragement to continue the struggle.

The fellowship came with a generous grant made possible by The Delaware Division of Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Delaware General Assembly. The wonderful thing about it was that the money had to be used to further my work. Writing retreat, writer’s conference, books, classes, memberships, creating a writing space – these things that I normally wouldn’t consider because of the cost or time were now possible. It is the best gift I’ve ever received.

Only one thing dampened my excitement. I knew before I applied about this one requirement of the DDoA. But still, when I read the words in the DDoA contract, my stomach turned over. I’d be required to do a public reading.

In normal readings, the author chooses an excerpt from her most recently published work. Something that will pique curiosity, encourage sales. But I don’t have anything published yet. For the DDoA application, I’d submitted two chapters of my novel, Cottonwood. It seemed weird to recite chapters from a book that no one else could read or purchase.

But last spring I’d taken a long form essay class from Maribeth Fisher, the executive director of the Rehoboth Beach Writer’s Guild. I feel strongly about connecting with nature and how that connection is necessary to save our environment. Maribeth pushed me to fill out the skeleton of ideas I had until I came to an uncomfortable conclusion. Yet it was a conclusion and it was something I could read, beginning to end, in a relatively short amount of time (unlike a 108,000 word novel!).

And that brings me back to 1:05 pm on November 8th. I’d read the pages lying on the podium in front of me countless times. I’d read them silently, whispered, out loud, out loud standing up, out loud standing in a large empty room, to my dog, to my cat. Mitch heard me so many times, he knew it by heart. Paul from Free Writes had told me to enunciate my ‘t’s and speak slowly which I practiced over and over. Still, the nerves. But when I opened my mouth, my voice came out. No squeaks or coughing attacks or stutters.  And before anyone could fall asleep, it was over!

Thank you to everyone who came to listen and support me and who said kind things afterwards. It meant more to me than you can imagine. And thank you to Trap Pond State Park for allowing me to use the incredible Baldcypress Nature Center for my backdrop and for taking us on a nature hike afterwards. And thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you to the Delaware Division of Arts!!!