On Hidden Wings Wins Realm Award!

On Hidden Wings won the Realm Award for Middle Grade Speculative Fiction! The Realm Awards are run by Realm Makers, an organization for Christian authors of fantasy and science fiction.

I discovered Realm Makers in 2021 and knew I had finally found my writing community—authors and literary professionals who understand both my genre and my values. In 2023, I released my debut novel, On Hidden Wings, and entered it in the 2024 Realm Awards. After making it past round one in every category it entered (Middle Grade, Fantasy, Debut, and Cover Design), this spring it reached the top 5 for Middle Grade. For months, I waited with eager excitement—and a touch of fear—to hear the final result.

The Realm Awards ceremony

At the Realm Awards banquet on July 19^th, 2024, I finally received my answer. You can view the ceremony here, and my portion starts at 29:35.

Here’s a transcript of my acceptance speech.

I am so honored to receive this award from Realm Makers, the community of faith-filled fantastical writers I had yearned to find for so many years. And many thanks to my loyal family and friends who have supported me throughout my whole writing journey.

I first started seeking traditional publication at age fourteen. After nearly twenty years of working and waiting and heartache, last year I felt God’s leading that it was time to stop waiting and share my work with the world—before 2023 ended. That timeline meant jumping into the adventure of independent publishing—without all the preparation and resources I hoped to have. Rather than all those things, I had to rely on God’s favor alone.

To me, this award is an unquestionable sign of his favor and kindness to me, his ability to do what I by myself could not. So, I give the greatest thanks to God for this special blessing to me and my book On Hidden Wings.

Thank you.

Why this award meant so much to me

While just a finalist, waiting for results, Realm Makers asked me to prepare a one-minute speech in case I won. It felt odd to write and practice a speech for a hypothetical situation—one that may not come into reality. But I imagined myself in that possible future moment, how I would feel, what I would say, and how much I could fit into a single minute.

What I couldn’t fit into that minute was the depth of the emotional journey. Just a few weeks before my launch date, my beloved step-daddy suddenly passed away. I didn’t know if I could—or should—go on, but I followed God’s leading to release the book, though I didn’t know why. With all the unexpected hurdles with the release—including getting my cover design so late I had to publish without even seeing a proof copy of the book—the grief, and then sickness after sickness, I didn’t have a chance to release my book the “right way.” I didn’t do all the things authors are supposed to do to give their books the best chance at success. Certainly not at the time of the book launch—and not even after that.

Many authors talk about the thrill of finally holding their book in their hands after all the years of work.

When I received my book, I just cried.

It felt like such a failure. My longstanding desire of publishing my work had come true, but not at all in the way I had dreamed. The only success I could see was that I had done what God told me to do, even though it hurt. And I just had to trust that he had a reason for the deadline he gave me, whether or not I ever knew it.

Is it good enough?

All along, I had wanted to be an agented, traditionally published author. I saw many other writers get frustrated with jumping through the hoops of this 98%-rejection-rate industry and publish books that weren’t quite up to the standards, and I resolved I wouldn’t do the same. That’s a big part of why my publication journey took so long (nearly 20 years). I was waiting for someone in the publishing industry, like an editor or an agent, to tell me my work was good enough. So many times, I received rejections or reached the finals in a contest only to not make the cut.

God told me he’s the judge of whether my writing is good enough, whether it’s ready—so I published. But when I entered the Realm Awards, and even when I made the top 5, I feared that once again my work would be found almost good enough, but not quite.

I didn’t want to give into that fear. I didn’t want to worry about the contest results. It took a lot of deliberate thought and prayer to just be excited to hear to the results but also be content no matter how it turned out.

So, when Scott Minor started reading out my book as the winner, I laughed and cried at once and could hardly believe it. I felt so loved, so blessed, by God in that moment. He had given me what I wanted so very much. After everything that hadn’t gone right, this award confirmed what he told me: my work was good enough. It was ready to share. And if I hadn’t published my book in that hard, dark season, I wouldn’t have experienced that moment of light and triumph on the Realm Awards stage.

The reward

And if that weren’t enough, he surprised me again when On Hidden Wings made the top 5 for book of the year, over all categories! God piled honor atop honor for me. He’s promoting me and my book when I didn’t have the capacity to do so myself.

And that is why I am so grateful and touched to receive this special Realm Makers award for On Hidden Wings, and I am grateful to you, dear reader, for coming with me on this journey.

When have you seen your hard work rewarded? How did it feel? Share in the comments!

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