Did you ever feel like your life was a podcast?
Well, I feel this way about my life last week. I can hear the podcast playing. Here’s the intro:
“This is a story about how so many crazy things can happen to one person over the course of four days. . . . Stay with us.”
Then the advertising kicks in –
“Have you ever tried and tried to make a website, but it just never goes well? Well, you should try Go Daddy’s amazing website builder. It makes building your website as easy as pie and friendly customer service representatives are at the ready to help when you.”
[ok, so Go Daddy is my website host and it happens to be the company that my sister-in-law, Lauren, works for and she helped build the “easy to use” website builder. But in all seriousness, the customer service reps are amazing and patient.]
After the break –
“We’re back – Act one – Here’s a story of a retired attorney, turned author, Karen Treiger, who published her first book and met tons of people along the way. But one day she had a book event at the Seattle downtown library and the different worlds she has been inhabiting collided. After the presentation, Tatyana, someone who had heard the author speak at a book club, came to library event to hear more, said – “can you show me that photo again – I think I saw Barbara!”
The photo shown towards the end of the presentation is pulled up and enlarged -indeed it’s Barbara, someone Tatyana knows from her work with Janusz Korczak Institutes around the world. Barbara, the woman in the picture is the granddaughter of Helena Stys, one of the Righteous Christians that helped Sam and Esther, the author’s in-laws, when they hid from the Nazis. Barbara had attended the Warsaw event where Karen launched the Polish translation of her book, My Soul is Filled with Joy and she showed the picture to provide a visual of the launch party. In fact, Tatyana explained, Barbara had been in Seattle just about a year ago for an educational conference about Dr. Korczak’s educational philosophy.
[For more details of Library craziness see blog post]
After the break, we’ll tell you how Karen went into shock upon hearing she won an award for her book.
Another ad –
“Have you ever wanted to read a book but, as hard as you try, you just can’t read while you are driving? Well, you can listen to books on Audible. Just think of the things you can experience just by listening while you are on your horrible commute home. Subscribe today and use the code ‘soyouwanttowriteaholocaustbook.wordpress.com’ and you can get 10% off your first book and start listening right away.”
Act Two: “So, this retired attorney, who now thinks she is an author decided to apply for some awards. She thought that they were all scams because they charge between $100 and $200 to apply and ask that you send a million books to some random address that you don’t believe is real. Then, the author met Jim, a retired publisher rep who now has time to go out to lunch to give advice to new authors, told Karen that she should apply for the PNWA Nancy Pearl award.
“Ya, ya, I know how these work, the author says skeptically, you apply and no one reads your book and someone who has an in with the organization or one of the big publishing companies wins the prize – no thanks.”
“’No’,” the retired book salesman says, ‘this is a prize that is given by librarians. It’s only librarians that read it and make the decision on who wins. You should totally apply.’”
“’Ok,’ the author says, ‘I’ll spend the $100 and try to forget about it, so I am not too disappointed.’”
The author fills out the form, pays the money and sends in the million books to address that is – who knows where.
As a defensive mechanism, she promptly puts it out of her mind and tries hard not to think about it.
One thing you need to know about Karen is she is an avid water skier. Any morning in the summer that the lake is smooth, you can find her out on the water skiing her way to heaven on earth, at least that is how she describes it. One day, she was walking down the dock at the Marina where her boat lives, and her phone rang. Now, she has described to me how it is always a terrible idea to answer your phone on the dock because the chance of the phone falling into the water is extremely high, in-fact, everyone in her family has lost at least one phone to the lake. But, against her better judgement she answered the phone.”
“Hi, says a disembodied voice, “I am Pam (not real name) from the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association. I am calling to tell you that you are a finalist in the Nancy Pearl Book contest, congratulations.”
“What,” the author says, not fully comprehending.
“You applied for the Nancy Pearl award for Best Memoir and you are one of the five finalist. The winner will be announced Saturday night at the awards’ banquet of the PNWA conference. If you have not signed up for the conference yet, finalists can get a discount to sign up.”
“I am actually already signed up to come to the conference,” the Karen stutters, “so that is amazing, thank you for letting me know.”
Ok, that is crazy, the author thought. But off she went on the boat – only thinking of glassy water and the endorphins that will be released as she crosses the wake back and forth, spraying water high above her head.
Here is the thing – the awards banquet begins on Saturday night, September 14 at 7 PM and end at 8:30. Karen observes the Jewish Sabbath and will not be able to leave her house until 8:10 PM on Saturday night. It’s a 15-20 minute drive to the hotel where the conference is, so she figured she would miss the awards ceremony. Ok, such is life. She figures she can arrive by 8:30 and see who won and congratulate the winner.
September 14th – the big day arrives. The Sabbath ends, Karen starts the dishwasher, and runs out to the car. It’s a Nissan Leaf – so driving is an exquisite pleasure of smooth silence and no gas emissions as she rolls over the streets of Seward Park, onto I-5 towards the airport to SeaTac where the conference is being held. She described to me that as she was driving, she did some self-soothing and self-talk – “it doesn’t matter if you win or not, being a finalist is an amazing honor and that is sufficient. Be ready to heartily and sincerely congratulate the winner when you get there.”
She arrives – it’s 8:26 – the dinner is over at 8:30. “Ok, let’s go,” she says to herself.
She enters the hotel and walks toward the ballroom where the 500 participating writers, authors, editors and agents are sitting having their dead chicken dinners. She describes her decision to wear her bright yellow leather jacket: “this is my lucky jacket,” she exclaims.
This is how she described the moment:
“OK, so I got there, trying to calm my nerves. I walked into the room with 500 people, figuring I would find the two people that I know and ask what happened with the awards. But as I stepped over the threshold of the door, into the room with 500 stomach-filled people, I hear the following booming noise: ‘the winner is Karen Treiger, My Soul is Filled with Joy.’ I look up and see my face and the cover of my book on the huge screen in both corners of the room. I say to myself, ‘I think I won something, but I am not sure what I just won.’ The announcers of the award are looking around the room to see if the winner will come to the podium to accept her award. So, I just keep walking straight up to the podium to accept my award. To say that I was in a state of shock is an understatement. My whole body went numb, I couldn’t even feel my heart pounding through my chest, though I am pretty sure it was. But I went up to the stage and took my certificate to the polite clapping of the audience, I grabbed the mike, looked at this large audience and said ‘this is a bit crazy, but since I observe the Jewish Sabbath, I just arrived, walked in, and heard my name. Wow, thank you.’ I really didn’t want those that saw me walk in just at the moment of the announcement to think – “OMG, can you believe it – -that woman was waiting outside to see if she won!” I gave back the microphone and the announcer said -ok, that’s it, thank you all for coming. There will be a reception for the winners and the finalists with the agents and editors. Have a good night.”
As Karen drove home, her numbness wore off and she allowed herself a moment of pride. She hoped that Esther and Sam, were proud of her too.
Podcast listeners – thank for listening and don’t forget to use the promo code – “soyouwanttowriteaholocaustbook.wordpress.com” to get 10% off your first book on Audible. A book we recommend is My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story, by Karen Treiger.
Karen with Peter Curtis – another Nancy Pearl Award Winner! {wrote a novel about his family’s escape from Prague during Nazi years}
So You Want To Write A Holocaust Book? 