Guess Who’s a Finalist For the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize…

Every Tuesday before anyone else in my house wakes up, before the sun rises, before I’ve even had my daily red-eye, I sneak downstairs, fire up to my laptop and check the sales stats for My Fighting Family.

Helpfully, the Penguin Random House Author Portal doesn’t just serve up weekly numbers. It also plots your figures on a line graph, so you can zoom out and view several months worth of data to identify trends.

If I’m doing events, you’ll see it in the line graph. Huge zigs and zags without much stability, like the stock market since January. Otherwise it’s full of small fluctuations within a predictable range. Sort of like Bart Simpson’s hair.

But many weeks, that line is as flat as a drag strip.

Flat as J.D. Vance’s personality.

Flat as the earth’s surface in Lord Jamar’s imagination.

It’s a gamble. If I’m checking to see how many people are buying my book, I’m also likely to find out exactly how few units I’m moving. It’s humbling, and I can’t even explain why I do it every week. Probably for the same reason that, hamstrings and low back willing, I still do hill sprints.

A significant part of me likes pain, apparently.

There’s also a bigger lesson here, for rookie authors willing to learn it:

If you know you wrote a good book, don’t change your mind just because sales are sluggish. I’d love the whole book-reading world to know how powerful and nuanced and timely My Fighting Family is, but that’s not the reality so far. Right now we’re a small club, so I’m embracing exclusivity.

And attaching my self-worth to sales stats? That’s more suffering than I’ll volunteer for.

Still, Thursday’s news hit me like a post-run endorphin rush.

Scott Sellers, the VP and associate publisher at Penguin Random House Canada, and the person who first solicited the book proposal that became My Fighting Family, forwarded a news release listing the finalists for the annual Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. Three categories, six nominees in each.

I found my name under the Nonfiction heading, the first major award shortlist for my first book.

Firstly, obviously, I’m thrilled, and a different kind of humbled. People who really know books sifted through the piles of new titles that hit the market in 2024 and decided mine was one of the six best true Canadian stories of the year.

But this honour runs a little deeper. The jury didn’t just like these 18 books. They read these books and decided these 18 writers have bright futures as authors. Awarding the book says you believe in the product. Nominating the author says you believe in the person.

So it’s an award shortlist, but it’s also a vote of confidence, and every writer needs those.

As for the prize itself — Rakuten Kobo, a leading seller of ebooks and audiobooks, awards it to first-time authors. For obvious reasons, I prefer this set up to the ones we usually employ, using the calendar to distinguish newcomers from veterans.

If this were a 30-under-30 list, I’d be nowhere. But I’m an Emerging Writer finalist at 48, and proof that, unless you’re playing pro sports, you can emerge at any age.

So yes, if we treat “young” and “emerging” as synonyms, there’s no category for me. Before I ride a bike, or squat to tend to the vegetable garden, I have to consider whether my knees and SI joint will seek payback later. Young people don’t have to do that.

But “emerging” can also mean you’re ready for new challenges, a broader audience, and a move to the next stage of your career. In boxing terms, it fits a hot prospect winning regional titles, and extending themselves from six to eight rounds, and beyond. So, Olympic silver medalist Keyshawn Davis emerged in 2023, when he knocked out Anthony Yigit in his first scheduled 10-round right.

You know what type of fighter the term “emerging” also describes?

The longtime contender who finally secures a title shot. In this scenario, Archie Moore emerged in 1953, when at 37* years old, with 140 pro wins on his résumé, he fought Joey Maxim for the world light-heavyweight championship.

(*Moore was born in 1913 or 1916… 1916 was more plausible but he refused to clarify… ever)

Ready to advance from contender to title winner to reigning champ — that was Archie Moore back then, and maybe it’s me right now. Newspaper scribe turned capital-W Writer turned author. Like Archie Moore, I took a long road to this title shot.

Now that I’m here, and figuring out how else I feel about this nomination, I’m wrestling with the difference between validation and vindication.

Validation, I don’t need. I know I wrote a top-flight memoir. Love letters to Black America are few, far between, and always on time. And as Canada and the U.S. edge from best friends to Fear Thy Neighbours, a meditation on the meaning of the border becomes even more relevant.

I’ve spent more than half my life toiling in various word factories, and I know how it feels to write something that stinks, then hope the few people who read it forget about it quickly.

My Fighting Family is the opposite.

My Fighting Family holds up.

So the award nomination is also vindication, which we all crave. The assurance that we’re not alone in knowing what we know, or feeling what we feel. It’s gratifying to learn that somebody besides my friends, my family, and a handful of Morgan Campbell fans scattered across the internet believe in this book and see an upside for its author.

So maybe the news juices sales for a week. I’ll find out a couple Tuesdays from now.

From there, hopefully, another step toward the next stage of my writing life.

I’ll be ready.

Looks like somebody agrees.

 

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