{"id":155,"date":"2010-12-03T00:32:58","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T05:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/?p=155"},"modified":"2025-05-27T14:15:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T19:15:28","slug":"janis-is-a-yalsa-award-for-excellence-in-nonfiction-finalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/janis-is-a-yalsa-award-for-excellence-in-nonfiction-finalist\/","title":{"rendered":"Janis is a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi all, It’s late but I don’t want to neglect those who peek in on my blog. I promise, promise, promise to post a more coherent blog when I have time, but for now I want you all to know that Janis Joplin Rise Up Singing<\/em> is one of five finalist books for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction<\/a>. I’m so totally thrilled that\u00a0my feet haven’t touched the ground all week. I told someone that I think I get what Paul\u00a0Simon meant when he sang about the woman who walked with diamonds on the\u00a0soles of her shoes<\/a>. I think\u00a0it was me.\u00a0Really. Okay, well, sort of. He couldn’t have been writing about me because we don’t know each other. Never met in fact. Never even crossed paths\u00a0on a city street.\u00a0But, before I forget, here’s the image of Janis Joplin Rise Up Singing with that sweet silver finalist sticker on the cover:\"Janis<\/p>\n

I have no idea why all this wonderful stuff is happening although I have suspicions that Janis and her friend Myra have conspired up there in heaven together.\u00a0 And how knows, maybe they had the spirit help of my mom and sister Lulu who’ve been hanging out up there for a long time. Oh, dear, am I getting sort of Whoopie Goldberb in that movie\u00a0GHoST?\u00a0That’s not my intent but I don’t think I did this on my own. I had to have a whole team of people at my publisher’s — \u00a0Amulet Books for Young Readers –<\/a> working in the background as well as\u00a0some sort of holy help, don’t you think?\u00a0 If you don’t, I’d love to hear your own theories. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyhow, forgive my overtired musings and let’s get back to the topic at hand…Janis.<\/p>\n

When I was\u00a0steeped in heavy revisions of Janis, I\u00a0dreamed she\u00a0showed up in my kitchen. There she was in a poncho and jeans with her hair all wild and lovely and that amazing smile and Texas twang, just standing in my doorway. She said, “I heard you gave me a do-over.”<\/p>\n

I stood there at the counter where I tend to cook and proofread even though it’s a fire\u00a0hazard and stared star-struck dumb while I clutched the manuscript to my chest.\u00a0I think I said something clever like, “Uh, yeah.”<\/p>\n

“Cool,” she said. Then she asked, “Does the ending come out the same?”<\/p>\n

I\u00a0flipped through pages even though I knew the answer, hesitated, looked around, finally mumbled out, “I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n

She was okay with it though. She just sat down, kicked her heels up on my\u00a0kitchen table and rocked\u00a0her chair back, laughed that trademark cackle and said, “Oh well, Those are the breaks!” But she laughed like she knew something. And\u00a0then there’s her friend Myra\u00a0rooting for the book. Myra,\u00a0loved\u00a0her so dearly and couldn’t stand the way people misunderstood her and who died this past October, forty years after Janis and in the same month that the Janis book came out and the same month that David Getz <\/a>produced a song relying upon Janis’s lyrics. In an email to me, he called it Karmadelic (a word he made up that fits so beautifully the way Janis might have expected things to\u00a0fall out on this earth). Going back to my dream – I think\u00a0Janis laughed at the outcome\u00a0because she knew\u00a0her life\u00a0doesn’t end quite the same way in the book because, as\u00a0long as her voice is alive, we can keep her alive.\u00a0I wonder if she knew Myra was about to join her when I was dreaming.\u00a0Janis was my hero, flaws and all when I was growing up; she was my cautionary tale. I think\u00a0many of us need to hear her again and again so we know we’re okay — flaws and all.\u00a0Her friend\u00a0Myra\u00a0became my most recent hero. I’ve never talked to a\u00a0wiser, more loving woman.\u00a0 Anyhow, I think of both women and all the friends\u00a0in my life these days.\u00a0What great magical connections!<\/p>\n

And now I need to go to bed because I’ve wandered and wondered way too much tonight on little sleep all week. I’ve been burning the candle morning, noon and night between teaching, talking up this book and the book of essays daughter Amanda and I edited (Silent Embrace, Perspectives on Birth and Adoption<\/a><\/em>) … which\u00a0I\u00a0said is my activist book until I realized that the way Janis is speaking to young adults\u00a0who don’t feel they measure up or have have been bullied for being different…<\/p>\n

…\u00a0I’ve also been steeped in thesis defenses at Mount Mary College<\/a> and now I need to write a graduation speech and a short speech about Janis for ALA…OMG! I need sleep now so I can do those speeches. And I’m rambling. And I’ve got diamonds on the souls\u00a0(an unintentional misspelling although\u00a0karmic?)\u00a0of my shoes and I’m really, really, really tired and going to bed now……..before my mind wanders even further.<\/p>\n

Here I go, walking\u00a0up to bed\u00a0with diamonds on the soles of my toes because I’m not wearing shoes…………<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi all, It’s late but I don’t want to neglect those who peek in on my blog. I promise, promise, promise to post a more coherent blog when I have time, but for now I want you all to know that Janis Joplin Rise Up Singing is one of five finalist books for the YALSA … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}