Holy smokes.
Foreword Reviews revealed its list of finalists for its annual INDIES Book of the Year awards today, and Luchador is named in three fiction categories: LGBT, Romance, and Multi-Cultural.
It's exciting for me on two levels, because Luchador is one of seven books and three of the dozen nominations for Interlude Press books. I'm so excited for authors Alysia Constantine (Sweet), Carrie Pack (In the Present Tense), Pene Henson (Into the Blue), Lynn Charles (Black Dust), Charlotte Ashe (The King & The Criminal), and Amy Stilgenbauer (Sideshow), who also received nominations.
Winners will be announced in Chicago this June at the annual convention of the American Library Association. This is not the Oscars—winners are announced during a slide show on the convention floor. There are no speeches (thank god) or statuettes. When Sotto Voce won this award (then known as "IndieFab") two years ago for LGBT fiction, I received three stickers to put on books on display at the IP booth. Eventually, we bought more.
What's the value for authors and small publishers, then? It's the ability to say that our books are recognized for their quality—which is at the heart of what Interlude Press is working to do. So thanks, Foreword. It is, as nominees say, "an honor just to be nominated".