Thank you, APALA and Amelia Bloomer List Committees

 Step Up to the Plate, Maria Singh took me thirteen years to write. It was a process of slow, repeated revisions, lots of tossed pages and plenty of feedback from many informed readers. So now that it's out in the world, it's very nice to see the book getting a little recognition, thanks to to the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association and the Amelia Bloomer Project. Why does a story come bubbling into the mind and demanding a writer's attention repeatedly? I don't know, but it's rewarding now to look back at the notes, the edited versions, the comments from readers, the questions from my writing group, my scribbled asides, the research material--to look at all that and know that others find meaning in what I have managed to make of it.  Time can sometimes be a writer's friend.