It’s very cool when award committees come to you. For awards you never even knew about, never even applied for. This has never happened to me before. It will probably never happen again. I am honored, grateful, and a little bemused. Does anyone use that word anymore? Well, I just did.
Here’s an excerpt from the letter I got yesterday:
Congratulations Heather!
Your blog, Where The Butterflies Go, has been selected to receive the First Class Blogger Award. Your blog was chosen by a committee of four bloggers who feel Where The Butterflies Go exemplifies what a great blog can be. It is our belief that first class blogs are more about the effort and time the owner puts into their blog and less about its page rank or the number of visitors it gets.
Your site will be listed on January 9, 2011 with three others.
Keep up the great work and congratulations again!
Thank you, First Class Blogger Award Committee. This was a really nice surprise.
Thanks to my readers for making me want to keep writing every day.
Heather
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I have found a second home here in the blogosphere, with too many benefits to mention.
I started my blog a little over two years ago, but I didn’t get really involved with the blogging community until my book Leap came out in February 2010. I had posted a few of the poems from my 2008 collection Where the Butterflies Go, but I hadn’t tried a poetry rally yet, or done an interview with any other blogger. I hadn’t hung out with you guys yet. Now I have, and I’m hooked. Plus, I’ve had people from 84 different countries visit me in the last three weeks (actual page-view visits of more than five minutes)–how cool is that?
Getting feedback on my work, reading your lovely comments about my poems and photos, checking out your posts–that would be enough for me to keep doing this forever, but wait, there’s more.
Publishers have found me through my blog and bought the rights to my photographs and poems. Young writers have found me through my blog and asked for some advice. It’s very rewarding to be able to help them out as best I can, and I’m looking forward to watching their careers unfold.
I’ve sold more books thanks to my blogging than I have at any public reading (a lot of swapping, not buying, goes on at readings) and best of all, through sales of both books, I’ve been able to donate to Unicef’s Gift of Education project three times. That’s three children who have received an education they may not have otherwise received, thanks to you readers!
Today, as a Christmas gift to thank you for visiting, commenting, giving me special awards, buying my books, and for your friendship, I’ve donated to Unicef (Canada) again. The $18 just bought 900 pencils for an entire school. Can you believe how much just $18 can do? Please do look at the Unicef link if you still have hard-to-shop-for people on your list.
My hopes for my 2011 blogging year? New friends, new projects, and more book sales so I have can get a fourth ($75) education for a child in need–or, perhaps–and this is a big reach but it’s a dream–a $500 water pump for an entire community.
I said it in 2009 to some most excellent friends (who later got me a t shirt saying I can’t rap), and I’ll say it again: I’ll be the very model of a modern networked blogger, yo!
My blogging "Mews" Sam
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Fellow poet and blogger Kellie Elmore has deemed me Exposure Worthy. I answered her interview questions late last night, and to my surprise, she notified me this morning that she already had the complete interview up at her site–with links and all! She’s amazing.
Thanks so much for suggesting we do the interview, and for
asking such great questions, Kellie. I thought it was going to be painful (I’m used to being the journalist; the one who asks all the questions) but it was actually a fun trip down memory lane.
This is about the only time I’d ever say that–as the author of a book titled, ‘Leap,’ I’d say I’m a pretty big fan of jumping in and going for it. But “Don’t Leap!” is definitely the appropriate title for the latest entry in my “By Leaps and Bounds” Photo Contest. This photo was taken by Tony Jurado on May 6, 2010, from the observation deck on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City, NY, USA. You can vote for this and other photos in the contest on my Facebook Author Page, and enter your own photo by following the rules in my previous blog post “By Leaps and Bounds Photo Contest”. Keep on leaping, everyone–I can’t wait to see what else you come up with for this contest!
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‘Leap’ reader Kimberly Jurado writes: “Sitting at the kitchen table, babying my cold, I leapt for my camera, and made a photo op out of the situation. I titled this photo, “Chicken Soup for the Poetry Lover’s Soul.” Your readers may also know this as Chicken Soup for the “Poultry” Lover’s Soul!”
Thanks for this second entry to my ‘By Leaps and Bounds Photo Contest,’ Kimberly! Please go vote for this photo on my Facebook Author Page
Heather Grace Stewart 