Radical Acceptance Speech

I have been lucky enough in my creative career to have had my work nominated for a number of awards. It has rarely won, but I have elevated “it’s an honour just to be nominated” to a state of being—I like having my writing mentioned in the same sentence as other work I admire, I like being a part of various traditions of celebrating great writing, I like being in the room to cheer for the eventual winner, and yes, I like having my own work celebrated, even if it isn’t the most celebrated of that particular celebration. The limelight is so spare and fleeting for us all, even a glimmer is nice. I like party food, a chance to wear a nice dress, a new line for my resume, being congratulated by nice people, a chance to share my book with new people, a chance to discover new books on the shortlist, a chance to feel proud when I’m nominated, a chance to feel humble when I don’t win, a new stage to embarrass myself on if I get to do a reading (fun story: when I read at the Amazon First Novel Award, I lost my place in the book and couldn’t start for so long that finally I murmured into the mic, “Maybe I’ll just go home.” And Shelley Ambrose whisper-yelled from the front row, “No, don’t go home! And I love your lipstick!” I hope life rewards her for that act of kindness. And I found my place and did the reading and it was a fabulous night.)

I recognize that I am privileged, lucky, and I still miss more lists than I’m on. I often feel sad about all the extremely deserving work that isn’t being celebrated. Having sat a few prize juries myself I know that while the opinions about who exactly the winner should have been can differ, there are so many good options crowding the top tier that the exact winner is down to a matter of who is the jury and their exact taste—and while it’s nice to win, we can’t exactly say it’s an immovable fact of bestness. I do my darnedest to not be swayed by the prize limelight when I’m considering what to read myself, and to celebrate what I find valuable in my heart and on my own tiny platforms. I do think of myself as the main adjudicator of the Rebecca awards and read with that in mind.

Anyway, my 2023 memoir These Days Are Numbered is currently nominated for a Toronto Heritage Book Award. The Toronto Heritage Awards are a cool thing with a Built Heritage Award and a Public History Award along with the Book Award. The Book Award nominees list has some amazing books on it—it is truly wild to be among them with my little meditations about cats and St. James Town and getting Mark to open the spaghetti sauce naked before he gets in the shower. But I did write a bit of Toronto history, of a kind. A very specific and local history, and I’m thrilled to have it acknowledged in this serious and important way. Surprised, but thrilled.

Experience has taught me that having the nominees announced a long while ahead of the prize being awarded is ideal, because there’s more time to enjoy being nominated. Nomination time is the time I still might win—we all might win! Maybe this will be the one time the whole nominee list wins! That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Group hug!! If we don’t, it’s fine, but better to put off the slight sting of disappointment for a little while, if we can.

I’ve been enjoying being nominated for the Toronto Heritage Book Award for quite a while now but the awards ceremony is on Monday evening so the jig is up! I can’t go because I have to travel for work (I’m going to Ottawa for some advocacy meetings for the magazine industry so at least I’ll be on theme). It sounds like it’ll be fun and nice to be at the awards gala, and I’m sorry about not meeting the other nominees and cheering for them, plus the wearing of the nice dress in the fancy room and the eating of the party food. And then after that I won’t be nominated for anything anymore, which is always sad. But it’s fun while it lasts, and I’m so grateful to have these cool experiences and be exposed to these cool books on the list. I hope you check them out at the link above and if you go to the party for some reason please please tell me about it.

<3
RR