Another month, another contest won
Lots has happened recently with the best being my winning another contest; this one being the annual Wilbur awards given out by the Religion Communicators Council. I was amazed to learn in late February that my piece on Paula White for The Washington Post Magazine won first place in the Wilbur's national magazine/top 15 markets category. I'd won the same award back in 2015 for my story on Nadia Bolz-Weber for More magazine plus I won another Wilbur (in the large newspaper category) back in 2002 for a series I co-wrote in The Washington Times. But I never thought I'd circle back for a third time.The Post magazine folks were nice enough to pay the rather expensive entry fee for my story and sent in this description with the story:When we learned that controversial, stiletto-wearing, thrice-married, Trump-campaign supporting televangelist Paula White was jetting to Washington frequently to continue to serve as spiritual adviser to the president and to play a key role in connecting him with other conservative faith leaders, we knew we wanted to find out more. The notoriously press-shy White granted religion reporter Julia Duin unusual access during a trip to Washington, and Duin not only followed her through meetings at the Old Executive Office Building, a pop concert and a religious gathering, she got White and her family members and supporters to open up. The result was a story that was newsworthy is many ways. It illuminated what White is doing at the White House, why she supports Trump despite his flaws, what evangelicals are hoping to accomplish through the "unprecedented opportunity to have our voice and say heard" in the Oval Office, and what her relationship with Trump is like -- including the fact that he doesn't challenge her claim that she led him to Christ. But, like any good profile, it revealed intriguing personal details about White that few were aware of: her son is a registered Democrat and studied feminist theory, her rock-star husband influenced her style, she turned to the prosperity gospel as a way to make money, her relationship with Trump has caused parishioners to leave her church, she goes on tour with her husband, she pays her own way with the White House. The story was one of our most read for the year, garnered more than 1,100 comments and was named one of the Top 10 Religion Stories of 2017 by The Media Project.
With that kind of buildup, how can one not win? Anyway, am very grateful to all who helped me get there. So that's the good news. The bad news is that the awards ceremony is in Atlanta on April 7, the same night I'm flying to Iceland for the writer's retreat.Otherwise ... I've been appearing here and there for book signings, including a trip to Portland in mid-February to see old friends and sign some copies at Chaparral Books, a store that my brother Steve works at part time in downtown Portland.I've been skiing twice: Once at Crystal Mountain Resort on a day when Veeka was off at a youth retreat across the mountains in Leavenworth. The other time was at Mt. Baker up in Bellingham, a place I hadn't skied at since I was a teen. It didn't look like it had changed much since then! Bellingham, which is close to the Canadian border, is a two-hour schlep from Seattle, so I don't get up there a lot but this time we got together with some newer friends and wandered about Lummi island, home of the famed Willows Inn. Not that we could ever afford to be there plus it was closed when we dropped by. We then headed to the Kitsap peninsula to spend the night with my brother Rob and his wife, Jan, then drove to Port Ludlow for another booksigning. The weather was sketchy but better than last winter's record rains.
Meanwhile, my book has gotten more write-ups, including this and this mention by Religion News Service and this review in Publisher's Weekly, which got the King County library system to decide to buy some of my books. I was overjoyed at that, as I can now do booksignings (and sell more books) at local libraries. I am grateful to Kimberly Winston who helped get my book mentioned in all those publications. And the Knoxville News-Sentinel ran this in late February. Not only that, but I'll be in Spokane in late April speaking at a media ethics event at Whitworth College, then back there in May to appear at a SpokaneFAVS event regarding the book. So, things have picked up.
And near the end of January, I did get southern California for a Religion Newswriters Association conference at USC that only lasted a day. But it was fun to be in contact with folks in my field. Then there was a meeting of writers for getreligion.org some days later in Irvine. It was such fun to be in warm weather and taken Veeka to Disneyland, which I don't ever have to see again in this life. But now she's been. We also drove through Hollywood, visited a friend who lives just south of Malibu and stayed with a family of 9 during our first few days there. It was a lovely break.The rest of March is very quiet for us as April is non-stop busy. We do keep moving, even if it's a hike in the lowlands like what we did last Sunday. The weather was so gorgeous, half of Seattle was outside doing something. Oh, and on Feb. 6, Veeka finally got her braces. That's been more than a year in the planning, so finally we're on our way.