National Indie Book Excellence Awards

I received the wonderful news that Oil for Your Lantern: Sharing Light After the Death of a Child won the Small Books category and was selected as a finalist in the Grief Category for the 19th annual awards! I was especially thankful that the publisher Lawrence Knorr of Sunbury Press supported the small, intimate 4×6 size of the book.

After Mack died in 2012 I received a book in the mail from someone I did not know, but she reached out to introduce herself because her brother had died of sepsis. She included Martha Whitmore Hickman’s book Healing After Loss which was published in 1994. Healing After Loss is also the intimate 4×6 size and I carried it in my purse for more than two years. I reached for it throughout the day, every day. Some of the pages became stiff from my dried tears. Other pages had notes and thoughts I had scribbled down. Eventually the cover fell off and I taped it back together. I don’t know that I have ever loved a book as much as I loved Martha’s.