The Premio Dardis Award – Thank You Carolyn!

Life takes interesting turns. Like this one, for example.

This morning I awoke with a blistering headache and a mood that found me stubbornly fighting it off without the aid of my customary 3 x 500 mg of Tylenol (or generic substitute). The dog was barking skull-splitting hypersonic pleas directly into my left ear (he needed to go out but I knew the snow on the ground would deter him the moment I opened the door) and I was settling into one of those days where I’d be going through the motions but not really enjoying myself all that much when

I paid a visit to my blog stats and found an interesting and unfamiliar referrer. A link to a blog called SharingwithWriters. I always visit the referrers, especially those from writers, publishers, editors and reviewers. (You never know, right?)

I read down through the current post and didn’t find anything even remotely connected to COF. Usually I’m either right in the post or over on the blogroll. I almost put it off to some random linking and then, for some reason, decided to read further.

And discovered that Carolyn Howard-Johnson had passed the Premio Dardis Award on to my webpage/blog.

!

Carolyn is the author of the multi-award winning series of How To Do It Frugally series of books. Her website has been named to the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites. And she gave ME one of 15 Premio Dardis Awards it was her privilege to pass on.

I still have my headache – but who the hell cares!?! I sure as heck don’t.

As Carolyn notes in her write up, the Premio Dardis is given for -

“The Pr?mio Dardos is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing.”

Huh. I wrote something original that’s worthy of recognition for its cultural, ethical, literary or personal value? I hope Carolyn gets in touch so I know what it was that caught her attention.

There’s also a nifty ’stamp’ that goes along with it. I’m supposed to stick it somewhere on my page so that others can revel in the honor and wonderfulness that is me (or my writing, or something…) – so here that is:

The caption says “Best Blog Darts Thinker”.

Pretty cool, huh? I mean – WAY COOL!. I’ve gotten a few cudos over the years for this and that, but this beats the pants off of being a member of the team that won one of the first ever IICS Golden Disc Awards and thrills me to exactly the same level that being voted a ‘Top 100 Player of All Time’ (for paintball) did.

I think that has something to do with the fact that both are peer awards. For someone who was told by his creative writing professor that I ought to quit the class, well – take THAT! unnamed (no talent) creative writing professor!

My exuberance is aggravating the headache. So I’ll come back down to Earth now and fill you in on the other requirements for this award. After I take that 1500 mg of acetominophen.

Vivian Zabel, publisher, passed the award on to Carolyn, who passed it on to me. Making that statement is one of the requirements, but I’m not doing it just because I’m supposed to. I’m doing it because I’m genuinely thankful to Carloyn – someone who I don’t know and have (to the best of my recollection) never corresponded with.

The other requirement is that I pass the award on to 15 other writers. Carolyn states that the origins of the Premio Dardis are lost in the mists of time, but that its intent is to – “(promote) fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.”

So – once again, thank YOU Carolyn Howard-Johnson and here are my 15 nominees: (in no particular order)

http://theeternalgoldenbraid.blogspot.com/ (Lensman’s Children)

http://www.file770.com

http://entertheoctopus.wordpress.com/

http://www.scalzi.com

http://scifistandpoint.wordpress.com/

http://other-worlds-cafe.com/news/blog

http://writtenweird.blogspot.com/

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/

http://billwardwriter.com/

http://sf-fantasy-books.blogspot.com/

http://scifisongs.blogspot.com/

http://www.sfsignal.com/

http://www.tor.com/

http://writeblack.com/

http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/