2009 Best of State--I made it!

Below is a photo-journal of the 2009 Best of State Gala, for which my Abinadi book won the Best of State Award for Historical Fiction.


My husband and I . . . all gussied up.

On the drive to Salt Lake, we drove through a major hail storm.

We finally arrive at the Grand Ballroom at the Salt Palace. We only had to drive around the block once to find the parking entrance. I borrowed the dress from G.G. Vandagriff! It worked out perfectly.

Posing by the Best of State statue. No one took this baby home (hmmm, where are his clothes?).


Inside the ballroom. Our table was wa-a-ay in the back.


I was just settling in to eat my salad when they announced my category, first! It was in the program as somewhere in the middle. Oh well. I hurried up to the stage and stood by Annette Haws.



We left a little early, just in time to catch a parking security guy writing us out a ticket. What? We'd parked in an "employee" stall.


Back at home, forgot to take a picture of the full-length. You can't see it, but my toenails match my skirt.

One of my children was not happy that I had left. There's a real tear on her right cheek.

Close-up of the up-do! Well, it was kind of a side-do and was falling out at this point. I think there were about 30 bobby pins in there.


My Best of State takes its proud place with the 2007 and 2008 Whitney Awards.

Shoes off, need some chocolate!

THANK YOU, MY DEAR READERS! If you weren't buying and reading my books, I would not have a publishing contract, I would not have won this award, I would not have a totally cool medal, and my feet would not be (pleasantly) sore.

. . . miscellaneous . . . .

The blurb in the program about Abinadi.

The back of the medal has my name and title of book on it:

The official award certificate--I guess I'll get a frame.

Getting Close

This week I hope to finish the first draft of my non-fiction book: Women of the Book of Mormon.

I'm on the last chapter! Yeah. Now, for those who are not writers, this is just one hurdle (the biggest hurdle, of course). But there will still be a lot of editing to come. My critique group has read most of it, since I've taken sooo long to write it (nearly a year from when I first outlined it). But I will pass it on to a couple of readers and hope to turn it into the publisher by the end of June. You might wonder why this book is taking so long. Here is a small example. I have a chapter on Sarah (wife of Abraham) because she is mentioned in the Book of Mormon by the prophet Jacob. I turned to the Book of Mormon Reference Companion by Dennis Largely, and guess what I found on Sarah? Two whole sentences. Yep. But I managed to create a whole chapter on her life. Thankfully there was a little more in the Book of Genesis about Sarah (not much, though).

My next "project" is to put together a couple of book trailers--one for ABINADI (I know, way overdue) and one for my next book: ALMA THE ELDER.

When Annette Lyon released her book trailer for Tower of Strength, I fell in love with the music--by pianist Sherrie Shepherd. So of course I had to contact her. Sherrie Shepherd was kind enough to allow me to use two of her songs (Heartstrings will be for Abinadi, Solitude will be for Alma the Elder). And this week she is having a CD giveaway on her blog--follow instructions to be entered! Her new CD features both of the songs I'll be using. I really love her music. I've been listening to it as I've been writing Women of the Book of Mormon and it sets just the right mood :-)

Also, in good news, I found a dress to wear to the Best of State Gala, loaned by author G.G. Vandagriff--if you haven't read The Last Waltz, you're missing out--it's a fascinating pre-WWI historical romance set in Austria. I reviewed it here.

Saturday night is the big night. I'll post pictures!

I Don't Believe It--2009 Best of State

Last night I was up way too late working on some things, but it paid off. About 11:00 p.m. a notice came in from the awards committee for the 2009 Best of State. I clicked over the the link to see if Abinadi had made the cut. The first name I saw was Annette Haws for Waiting for the Light to Change. "Oh well," I thought. "Good for her." She's won the AML and a Whitney Award with that book, so I wasn't really surprised. In the past, only two books, a non-fiction and a fiction have been awarded the Best of State. Before I clicked off, I glanced on more line down and saw ABINADI. It was labeled as a Historical Fiction winner. I don't know if it's a new category, or if they couldn't decided between the two books, but I was elated.

So, on May 30th, I'm going to show up wearing some type of Formal attire at the Best of State Gala!

Book of the Month--When Hearts Conjoin

When Hearts Conjoin

By Erin Marie Herrin with Lu Ann Brobst Staheli

RPE Publishing, May 2009

“Some people believe angels are real. Some believe they walk among us. On August 7, 2006, on the fourth floor of Primary Children’s Hospital, angels were there to comfort me on the scariest day of my life.”—begins the remarkable true story of the conjoined Herrin twins in the long-awaited memoir, When Hearts Conjoin. The account of Kendra and Maliyah’s birth and subsequent separation has appeared in magazine articles and newspaper articles around the world. So it was with eager anticipation that I read an advance copy of When Hearts Conjoin—the real story, as told by their mother, Erin Herrin.

From the first page, I was swept into the life of Erin and found myself reading the entire book in one day. The rollercoaster of emotions that she and her husband experienced left me breathless and in tears many times. Her pain was my pain, and her joy became my joy. At times, the reality of what Erin underwent in a physical sense and what she and her husband experienced emotionally and spiritually were overwhelming. I could barely comprehend experiencing one of their trials—let alone the combination of a miscarriage, the pending divorce with Jake, a father with stage four cancer, a father-in-law rapidly deteriorating from Parkinson’s, making the decision between the life and death of two children, a series of critical surgeries, a kidney donation, and finally the decision to separate the conjoined girls.

In order to tell her story, Erin Herrin had to revisit the past, oftentimes painful memories, some of which she kept tightly locked in her heart. In a recent interview, co-author, Lu Ann Staheli said, “Probably the most difficult thing about [writing] this book was that Erin had tried so hard to shut out all the fears and bad memories from the past that she had almost blocked out some of the very details we needed to make this story alive enough to touch the hearts of the readers.”

I must wholeheartedly agree with the foreword penned by Richard Paul Evans, “I’m honored to introduce this amazing experience of sacrifice, faith and tender moments of quiet determination that can only come through the purest love. A mother’s love. A mother’s story. This is Erin Herrin’s journey to claim her family and keep them close to her heart.”

You will not be the same person after reading this book. It will change you. It has changed me. For continual updates and photos, or to order a copy of the book, visit the Herrin Family website: http://www.herrintwins.com/