I’m happy to announce that Déjà View recently won its second award, The Spring 2024 BookFest Award in the category of Young Adult Literary and Coming of Age! On top of this, it won First Place! This is my first First Place literary award. Danger Peak won Second Place for its category, Young Adult Action and Adventure, at The Fall 2022 BookFest. And as I wrote when Déjà View won The 2024 Firebird Book Award in the same category as my recent award, Coming of Age is a much broader genre and more difficult to win. According to The BookFest: “The BookFest honors authors who create outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction. The BookFest’s mission is rooted in the belief that literature has transformative power.”
I actually didn’t think I won at all for this year’s contest. When Danger Peak won its BookFest Award 2 years ago, I was notified I won via email on the Friday before the BookFest event, which always takes place on a weekend. I knew the Spring BookFest was this past weekend, and while both Friday and Saturday came, I didn’t receive any emails. Then Sunday morning and afternoon came, and I still didn’t receive any messages. I even searched the BookFest site and couldn’t find my book, but I guess I didn’t look hard enough. I have to admit, I was disheartened all weekend. I knew Coming of Age was a harder category to win, but I thought Déjà View would’ve earned Third Place or at least Honorable Mention. Finally Sunday night arrived, and I was given word of the win. I also learned that not only did I win, but I came in First Place! Talk about leaving a guy in suspense! I’ve already updated the book’s page on this site with the golden award seal.
You can see the award win on The BookFest’s website below:
You can also see the book’s cover in a montage video of all the winners on the BookFest video below. (Déjà View appears at 4:06.)
I’d like to personally thank Desireé Duffy, Founder of The BookFest, and the judges for their fine taste in literature! 😊
MTP
P.S.: Happy Solar Eclipse Day! (I heard the next one’s 20 years from now, so enjoy it while you can!)
P.P.S.: Next blog: The Last Day of Elementary School
P.P.P.S.: Déjà View is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble:
Michael Thomas Perone 