An Awards Week Post Script: I Didn’t Win But I’m Still Winning

The only appropriate reaction to any award nomination is gratitude, and that rule applies whether or not you wind up clutching the big cheque and hoisting the trophy at the gala.

Yes, it’s a little disappointing not to win — I know, from repeated experience. But to the extent that any of this is a competition, every finalist has already defeated hundreds, sometimes thousands, of other authors just reach these shortlists.

The Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize winner was announced on June 17, and the Trillium Book Awards the Following night. Me and my debut memoir, My Fighting Family: Borders and Bloodlines and The Battles That Made Us, were nominated for both. I entered Awards Week nursing a longshot optimism that I could claim two major honours, but left both ceremonies trophyless.

But because the only fitting reaction is gratitude, none of it really bothered me.

The qualifier is needed because I could have used one or both of those $20,000 grand prize payouts. Writing is a craft and a calling, but it’s still a business and I’m a suburban dad whose life, as many other suburban dads know first-hand, is one big cash-burning furnace. I had uses for that money.

But I didn’t have plans for it, because I’m either smart or humble enough not to count that money, much less spend it, unless it’s in my account. Only way that happens is if I win, which I knew was a shaky bet. I didn’t even write an acceptance speech, because I knew how long the odds were against ever needing to read it.

And no, I’m not going to share what I would have said if I had won, because I didn’t win. If I wanted to write a speech, I would have done it three weeks ago, when I had a spare hour. But, as the suburban dads can also attest, any time I have to myself is borrowed or stolen, and the rest is spoken for.

Also, what I would have said matters a lot less than what I actually say.

I spent my 20s and 30s as a sportswriter with author potential, and devoted a lot of brainpower to the books I would have written if only I had the time or financial support. Maybe a Friday Night Lights-style narrative non-fiction project about a youth sports team. Or a collection of my thoughts on the sweet science like Carlo Rotella’s masterpiece, Cut Time. Or a memoir about watching daily journalism spiral into irrelevance — like David Simon’s classic essay, “A Newspaper Can’t Love You Back,” built out and scaled up to book length.

But I never wrote the books I would have written. My Fighting Family is the book I actually wrote, because I seized the opportunity to cure myself of a terminal case of the Would Haves. It’s a debilitating condition that has stunted countless careers, and was set to hamstring mine if I didn’t act.

Five years and four award nominations later, I’m feeling like a winner on both sides of the border.

In the US, I made the shortlist for the Balcones Prize for non fiction at Austin Community College. In six weeks I’ll be at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Cleveland, participating in the Authors Showcase, which comes with an NABJ Outstanding Book certificate.

And in Canada, if you’ve been following me you already know.

First came the Rakuen Kobo nomination, which, as I explained a few blog posts ago, is proof that an “emerging” writer can emerge at almost any age. And then there’s the Trillium shortlist, which put me in the company of people whose books we read in school.

It’s all less about the award than the honour and the milestone. Knowing that other veteran authors respect and value your craft, it’s like a martial artist earning a black belt. It’s like graduating from journalist to author.

And because it’s a business, each nomination also means we can put a stamp on the cover of the paperback when it hits stores in six months. A signal to the reader that My Fighting Family is worth their time.

As for the feeling that I’m winning something?

I’m still picking up small victories.

My book’s at the Central Library in Dallas now, and it’s in Harvard’s library, too. Last week I learned that it had popped up at another prestigious spot on the South Side of Chicago — the reading room at the Quadrangle Club on the University of Chicago’s campus.

Modest triumphs, but I’m not done.

Summer’s just starting, and so am I.

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