My new Award

I love winning awards. Who doesn’t?

Two weeks ago, it happened again. I gave a reading at BuCon (Book Fair Convention on Frankfurt Book Fair Saturday) and was sitting at my book table, striving  to sell as many books as possible. That’s not easy. The hall is packed with writers’ stands and publishers’ booths. We all have very much in common, not least that we endeavour to reduce the number of books we brought to the event by offering them for sale to an interested readership. And there were a great many interested readers at the event, who pushed their way through the aisles and filled their bags with printed matter, while both dealers and authors alike were keen to fill their pockets with money.

My new novel ‘Sturmkrallen’ (=Stormclaws)  was extremely popular and I soon ran out of copies. But my wonderful spouse valiantly mounted his bike and travelled from Frankfurt to Dreieich to bring me more books. Love is a beautiful thing. Thank you, my love.

And while I was still sitting there, rejoicing, a nice BuCon helper suddenly approached my table and hurried me along.

‘Come quickly! Roger needs you!’

I rushed off, leaving my BuCon stand for my neighbour to guard, forgetting my handbag, wondering what could have happened that Roger needed me so urgently.

Well.

I got an Award. The BuCon Lifetime Achievement Award.

I hadn’t expected that.

If I had known, I would probably have run my comb through my hair before going there. And I would have prepared an acceptance speech. As it was, I stood in front of an applauding audience and gave my – presumably  –  thank you speech. Unfortunately, there was so much adrenaline floating around in my brain that I can’t even vaguely remember what I actually said. I hope it wasn’t too embarrassing.