2019 IPPY Awards: “The Hottest Spot North of Havana…”

When I received notification that Giving Voice, the animated edition on Apple Books had received an ‘IPPY’ award for Best eBook Design, I hadn’t planned to go to the ceremony. It was literally on the heels of the SNAG Conference in Chicago. After a number of people looked at me like I’d lost my mind at the idea of merely accepting the awards packet in the post, I relented and let myself get the rock star treatment. 

The ceremony was held at the legendary Copacabana near Time Square in New York. From the moment I RSVP’d yes I had the Barry Manilow song of the same name stuck in my head. Just being there was cool. My category was the final of the night in a long list of some truly amazing books. No where else could I sit between fellow award winners Andrea M. Page  author of Sioux Code Talkers of World War II (Pelican Publishing), T.R. Todd author of Pigs of Paradise: The Story of the World-Famous Swimming Pigs (Skyhorse Publishing) and three-time gold medalist Claire Chao for Remembering Shanghai: A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels and all under glittering disco balls. It was a blast! Now I have another long list of books I need to get.

Thanks to everyone at The Jenkins Group for the event. Needless to say I would never have won this without Steve Walker’s incredible animations in the book, Roddy Noll’s soundtrack, and Uduak Ita’s image editing.

Jetting off to Chicago for five days, being home for one day, and flying off to New York for two more days will take me a while to recover, but it was worth all travel! Thanks also to my wonderful family for being the world’s most supportive entourage.