When you are truly affected by the words of a passionate writer or speaker, the words burrow into your skin. “The Day of the Shoes” was born this way, sitting in the back of my brain for a year. While the essay is fiction, the story was inspired by Shane Claiborne of The Simple Way. I heard him speak; I watched hundreds of people deposit their shoes on steps and walk awkwardly to their cars on a cold day.

I’m humbled by this incredible award. As a relatively new writer, my goals for 2004 were simple: to be published in a print magazine, and to earn $100 for my efforts. This prize exceeds my wildest dreams, and I am very grateful to those who saw something special in “The Day of the Shoes.”

I began writing at the age of ten, continued writing throughout high school and college, and graduated with a degree in English. After a brief and unsuccessful attempt to publish my stories in the early 1990s, I put my writing career on the shelf and had babies instead, and then began working as a Realtor. On Christmas Day, 2002, I picked up my pen again after being struck by the wonderful realization that my children had become somewhat self-sufficient. Many early mornings and late nights are now spent on the laptop, my fingertips slowly wearing away the white letters on the keys.

My first fiction publication came in June of 2003, and since then, my stories and articles have nestled themselves in the crooks of literary elbows such as The Citizen, Gator Springs Gazette, Literary Mama, The Journal of Modern Post, Pindeldyboz, Kinetic Travel; in The Binnacle and NFG Magazine (both forthcoming); in a book anthology of essays, and numerous other quaint magazines around the U.S. I co-authored a real estate column in a monthly newspaper in 2003, and served as an editor of two online journals.

Currently I am working on several fiction and non-fiction projects, including a novel with co-author David Hopwood, called The Driftwood Letters of Cricket and Blue.

I am inspired by the wisdom of Madeleine L’Engle, by the raw honesty of Anne Lamott, and by the clever humor of David Sedaris. And I am motivated by the deeds of humble souls, by writers of humble means, and by a guy of humble birth.

Christopher, a former executive, trudges through snow on a mission for shoes. Six hundred miles away, Gloria, a homeless single mother of three teenage daughters, has responsibilities that seem endless. Christopher is motivated by passion, while Gloria is motivated by survival. Together, these two unlikely friends strive to create compassion in the lives of the indifferent and hope in the souls of the homeless.

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