Two new book awards for my short story collection!

So incredibly excited to receive two new book awards for my short story collection, Drink Wine and Be Beautiful.

I recently learned that my collection won both the 2024 American Legacy Book Award, Finalist – Short Stories and the  Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2024, Finalist. This means that my short story collection has now garnered SIX book awards!!

This is especially meaningful for me, since, during my extremely brief foray into traditional publishing, I constantly heard from agents and publishers that short stories don’t sell and that they were not interested – unless you were a mega best selling author. This made me even more convinced I wanted to publish this collection, and I started learning more about indie publishing, and eventually took the plunge.

Five indie-published novels, with another on the way, a short story collection and an anthology later, I’d say the plunge into self-publishing is complete – and I’m ratcheting up the (tiring, but highly enjoyable) laps. : )

Here’s the back jacket blurb:

Italy serves as the backdrop for stories of Italian women and expatriate women living in Italy.

A freak snowstorm in Rome changes the travel plans of two women, touching their lives in ways they could never have imagined. An ambitious Italian professional working in Brussels rails inwardly at her privileged boss, until fate presents her with a rare opportunity. A long desired trip to Bali, Indonesia serves as a needed chance for introspection. A cautious housewife in Rome thinks back to a fateful missed connection in Florence. A first-time mother feels debilitating guilt for not bonding with her newborn, until an elderly neighbor provides her with a new perspective.

The twenty-one stories in this collection follow women’s lives as they confront betrayal and love, alienation and community, despair and-ultimately-hope.

Learn more about Drink Wine and Be Beautiful and find the buy links here.

And if you’re interested in the title, you should know I “borrowed” it from the great E.M. Forster. See the visual here below. To me, this is a gorgeous way to describe Italy, and I knew I needed to use this as a title for my collection, and inspiration for one of the stories in this collection.