Awards

An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signified by trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons. ...


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Award



I’m pleased to announce that I won the Arts & Humanities Division “Adjunct of the Year” award at St. Charles Community College for 2011! I’m not one to win many awards, so this was a pleasant surprise.

I have won a few writing awards, and am proud of all of them. But I want to tell you a story about one award in particular that I will never forget. I wrote articles for a national organization many years ago, and one of my articles won the “Most Informative Article” award from the National Safety Council. To this day, I still don’t know which article won. My boss wouldn’t tell me, said he didn’t know. I called someone else on the committee, who said my boss WAS on the committee that selected the winner. I asked again, he said he didn’t know anything about it.

To say my boss didn’t like me would be an understatement. I was upset and actually cried because he completely denied every aspect of the award. What I remember most from that experience was that he was able to negate every good feeling I had about winning. I would like to tell you I learned a valuable lesson. I didn’t. I would really like to tell you that he learned a valuable lesson. He didn’t.

Some authors win big awards, others don’t. I’ve been introduced to a few books because they’ve won awards, and sometimes I agree with them, and other times I don’t. But for me, I just keep plugging away, hopeful that people will read my work and respond. An award is a response, and that’s a good thing.

The “Adjunct of the Year” award doesn’t have any monetary benefits, but I’m proud of it, and no one can take that feeling away from me.

What awards are you most proud of?

Talk to you soon,

Mary