Lauren Myracle: how it felt to be dropped from National Book Awards
How does it feel to win huge national accolades for your work 鈥� and then have them taken away? , you take it as a lesson in the craziness of life 鈥� 鈥渕essy, wonderful life."
Myracle, who was told she had been nominated for a National Book Award before news came that there had been a mistake, wrote in The Huffington Post that the experience has been 鈥渏ust one more reminder not to be so invested in validation from external sources鈥�.
It did, though, take her a while to get to that point.
鈥淭elling my parents about the mix-up, and telling them about the decision to pull the book 鈥� by that point the writing was on the wall 鈥� that was the worst part,鈥� Myracle wrote. 鈥淕od, it sucks to disappoint your parents, even at forty-two years old. They were nothing but loving, of course. I should have known they'd be. I did know they'd be. It still sucked.鈥�
Myracle that she had felt gutted to hear that the awards judges wanted her to withdraw her book, 鈥淪hine,鈥� from consideration for the award.
鈥淚 felt embarrassed, and ashamed that I had the gall to believe that this book was worthy.鈥� But she decided to 鈥渂e classy鈥� and agreed to withdraw the title, which told the story of a 16-year-old girl whose gay friend is the victim of a hate crime. she was told the book was a nominee she had been 鈥渄eeply moved that in recognizing 'Shine,' the NBF [National Book Foundation] was giving voice to the thousands of disenfranchised youth in America 鈥� particularly gay youth 鈥� who face massive discrimination and intimidation every day.鈥�
On her suggestion, the book foundation went on to donate $5,000 to the Matthew Shepard Foundation, a charity founded in honor of . The director of the Shepard foundation 鈥渢his is one of those rare situations when something that could have created a lot of bitterness instead produced something positive that everyone involved can be proud of. It鈥檚 a wonderful example to us all.鈥�
Myracle wrote that the donation is 鈥渢he one unsullied good thing that鈥檚 come out of this for me.鈥� But in comments on her most recent piece, dozens of people applauded how she handled the situation. They said they might never have heard of 鈥淪hine鈥� if the controversy hadn鈥檛 occurred 鈥� and now they want to read
the book.
Seattle writer Rebekah Denn blogs at
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