Our Video Interviews with Newbery Medal Winners

Winning the Newbery changed my life over the course of a few seconds. As soon as they made the announcement at the Youth Media Awards Conference, my email, my phone, my text, my social media exploded.

I was working full time at the time as a copy editor and within a few weeks I was able to leave my job and now I am a full time author. And I also teach at Rosemont College. I teach children’s literature. I’m a graduate MFA in publishing programs.

And it has allowed me to really travel and visit book festivals, talk to kids. You know, Hello Universe and You Go First, which was released maybe like a month and a half after the Newbery announcement, both on The New York Times Best Seller Lists.

So it was absolutely life changing. It still doesn’t get rid of the imposter syndrome. A lot of people say oh, you won the Newbery, now you feel validated. But I don’t think anything ever really gets rid of that. But it has been life changing in a lot of incredible ways.

The little quiet writer girl inside me read books and daydreamed about being a writer is very impressed. She’s still in there. She’s still in there. And she’s still quiet and she’s still living in her head. But she’s not quite as alone as she used to be.