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Flying on Air Canada back home. ESPN picked up my Bob Sheppard piece which made me feel a lot better about not winning any awards at Catholic Press.

I was thinking more deeply about what the award would mean to me anyway. I won a CPA award in 2004 for an article that I had even forgotten I wrote. It's a good article but the book is something I'm much more proud of. So I'm feeling weird about the concept of awards.

I also didn't write the book to win awards but rather to serve others...I believe the book is doing that and the next one will do that as well.

Right now I'm mobile blogging an annoyed at the guy next to me who has an empty seat next to him on this plane that's open so we can both have more leg room. Ugh.

But back to being self reflective... I need to have more self-confidence about my work and know that it's all good stuff. Whether that gets recognized or not. God is the only one that I try to serve with what I do...and that is more than enough.

Today's prayer: "Give me only your love and your grace...that's enough for me."

ESPN's Rob Neyer Picks up my Interview with Bob Sheppard

Yankee Stadium's The Voice of God - Bob Sheppard

ESPN Insider

See the whole interview here on BustedHalo

Pastoral Ministry Award--good news and bad news

The bad news first: Googling God did not win EITHER award (First time author of a book or Best Book on Pastoral Ministry) it applied for at the Catholic Press Association Awards. We applied under our imprint BustedHalo Books--which is an imprint of Paulist Press.

The good news: Paulist Press won 2nd place in the Pastoral Ministry Category for Mexican American Catholics and then also took Honorable Mention in the same Category for The Practical Prophet and I Don't Want to Go To Church (which has a cool cover).

Other winners included:

Fr. Jim Martin, SJ who is a good friend won for his great book A Jesuit Off Broadway--which if you haven't read, is a wonderful book about his experience as a theological expert on the play "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" which was directed by Phillp Seymour Hoffmann who is clearly a genius of an actor.

Ellie Hidalgo of Los Angeles' The Tidings Newspaper won two awards for her fine reporting. Bryan Cones, who used to blog for BustedHalo and is the managing editor of U.S. Catholic won for two of his pieces and Eileen Markey who is one of our BustedHalo Writers also won for a piece she did for the National Catholic Reporter.

So congrats to all! As for me, I will feel better once I curl up with my dog and wife tomorrow--for now I'm drowning my sorrows with bad Canadian pizza.

First Time Author of a Book

And the winner is ...NOT Hayes

Catholic Update

wins 2 awards right out of the gate. My buddy John Feaster is the editor!

Next Year's Convention

Is in Anaheim California right across the street from DisneyLand. It's a world of laughter....

Who owns the New Catholic Enclyclopedia?

Marc Lombard and I raced to try to find this answer. He ran around the room to find the US Bishop's librarian. I used my my treo to find the info on wikipedia. Marc had the info quickly and also that Thomson-Gale (the alleged company) also owns Scribner. He got sidetracked on his way back to the table and Wiki beat him by about a minute but without the Scribner info.
Our purpose was really to see why it's not available online and Thomson Gale is looking to become the next version of Microfilm but in online form. So they are just buying up everything.
Ah...the interesting things we muse about at the dinner. My steak is now cold BTW.

St Anthony Messenger Press

Surprisingly we have a number of younger people at our table...all who work for the Franciscan organization at St Anthony Messenger Press. Dinner is provided by the Knights of Columbus.

Dinner partners

Marc Lombard and John Feaster are from American Catholic.org a Franciscan site and they will be my dinner partners. I'll weigh in on our other companions soon. Marc and I did a workshop on using new forms of media for Catholic Press Professionals (essentially editors of Catholic Newspapers). Fun time and I think it was useful for those who came.

Mobile Blogging from Catholic Press Awards

I'm going to let you know if Googling God is an award winning book instantly.

Catholic Press Awards Tonight

I'm up for TWO Catholic Press Awards tonight for Googling God--the book! One is for Best Book on Ministry and the other is for Best First Time Author. I hope I can at least place in both but I really want to win first place in at least one of them. We'll see. In the meantime, I am enjoying Toronto once again. I come here often and have Paulist priest friends who always let me crash at their place out of the kindness of their hearts.

I got Barenaked

Barenaked ladies--the band, that is showed up at Fr. Dave's show and since he knows I like those guys he invited me down to meet them. I was so excited and I even snagged a pic.

They have a cool new kids album out--called Snacktime--which is for both kids and adults. "This is just a cool kids album that parents won't want to shoot themselves to if their kids listen to it over and over and over."

Agreed. Get it here

Happy 60th Anniversary to Paulist Fr. Jim Lloyd

Fr. Jim Lloyd who is 60 years a priest today is spunky at the age of 87. Fr. Jim saved my mother's life by being her spiritual guide when she was recovering from surgery and lost the will to live--he surgery was fine but her mental state was less than solid until Fr. Jim began to speak with her.

Happy 60th.