On Saturday, I attended the Millbrook Literary Festival as a finalist for the Scott Meyer Award. It was a full day of author panels, workshops and networking. At 1:00, the finalists were introduced, and we all read our short essays. The judge, Karen Orloff (author of 7 published books and a column in the local newspaper for the past two decades) then announced the winner.

I was shocked. It was me!

I hadn’t expected to win. It’s a complete cliché, but I was honestly just happy to be nominated. So I hadn’t been stressing about the award itself; I was more nervous about reading the essay to the crowd. That part went well. I felt calm and read clearly. It was a comfort to have my whole family in the audience, including both my children, my husband, parents and mother-in-law. Although the essay is about a personal moment for me, it references stories about my son, and I felt like I was reading it to him. Friends and colleagues were also in the audience, and it cheered me to see their faces.

The other two finalists read their essays, and both were excellent. I would have been happy to clap for the winner, whomever that turned out to be. And then she announced my name.

The following ten minutes was overwhelming. Plaques were presented, and there were pictures. A check was handed to me. Then a reporter from Living Millbrook magazine announced that she was going to interview me. That was a surprise: I’d known that the winner would be interviewed, but I didn’t think it was going to happen immediately after the contest. I had to scramble to figure out what my family would be doing– the baby was fussing for her nap– and didn’t have any time to prepare for the reporter’s questions. I have only a vague idea of what I said!

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to process the interview, the moments of congratulation and comments from the crowd, and how I responded. I woke up in the middle of the night (well, the baby woke me up, but I stayed awake) thinking that I should have handled something differently. Then I told myself that it was stupid to think about it, because I couldn’t change it, and probably no one had paid attention anyway. So I let it go.

And how do I feel now? How is an “award-winning” writer supposed to feel? I’m not sure. I’m proud that I won, and I’m grateful for the experience of sharing joy with my family. I’m especially happy that my son got to see me read my work so that he can understand what I doing when I’m telling him “shh… Mommy’s working.” I got the opportunity to be a role model for him, and that felt great.

But aside from that, what I’m mostly thinking today is, “Okay, what’s next?”

It’s wonderful to be published, to have an agent, to win awards. These are the things I dreamed about when I first started writing. These are the moments I’ve been working toward for years. But even if my work is never recognized again, I’m still going to be sitting down in front of my MacBook every day. I’m still going to be writing in my brainstorming notebook every night. I’m still going to be working on projects and thinking, “What’s next?”

It’s the work that matters, not the award.

But the award is still really cool, and I’m so grateful to the Millbrook Literary Festival for the honor.