I'm completely beside myself to announce that Kitchens of the Great Midwest has been named a finalist in two awards this summer -- the 2016 SCIBA Book Awards and Late Night Library's 2016 Debut-litzer Prize. As an unknown debut author, it's a blessing to have readers at all, let alone award nominations, and I'm blown away by the extremely kind support from the booksellers of Southern California and the great Late Night Library folks up in Portland. Whatever happens, it's pretty overwhelming and surreal just to be in this situation.