A nice little surprise came in the mail today. I might have had an inkling of it if I had remembered to call Jerry Hanken back when he tried to get in touch with me earlier this week. The surprise was two certificates from the Chess Journalists of America, which said that I had won 3rd Honorable Mention and 4th Honorable Mention in the Chess Journalist Awards for 2008 in the category of Best Instructive Lesson. The two awards were, respectively, for the articles “Hook and Ladder Trick” and “Don’t Just Reassess Your Chess — IMPLODe It!” that appeared in Chess Life.
Now you’re probably wondering, as I did, how many award-winners were there before they got to the honorable mentions? But let’s not dwell on those details. An honorable mention is supposed to be, well, an honor! So I will take it as such. In fact, this is a higher honor than any of my articles from my “real” career as a science writer have ever won. And it’s proof that I have joined the esteemed fraternity of chess journalists.
Now if they could just make a category for Internet chess lectures …
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Be careful before getting excited about an award from the CJA. An honor from them is no more than the equivalent of winning a “class” prize. Just whom did you compete against? Enough said. But they’re trying…
–Howard Goldowsky