My friend, a prize-winning author!

I just got back from a great meeting with my writing group — women who consistently challenge me and teach me, as a writer and as a mother.

One of our members had to stay home with a sick child tonight, but it was great to see that she recently won the Silver prize at Best Travel Writing for an essay we read for the first time two years ago. It’s great to see how the piece has grown and shifted as she has grown and shifted as a mom. And it’s inspiring to see that sometimes the work that sits around for a while really is waiting for just the right time to ripen. It’s not always an issue just of time or motivation; sometimes it just takes more lived experience for the arc of a story to take shape.

Congratulations, Stephanie, on your essay, “A Mother’s Chase.”