Wow! Didn't see that coming.

A happy smile as I mingled with writers and readers after the short list was announced.

Imagine the jaw-dropping surprise when I got two emails in the same week announcing The Golden Daughter was a contender for two literary awards.

The Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) has shortlisted me for the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award. Evelyn Richardson (1902 – 1976) won the 1945 Governor General’s Non-Fiction Award for We Keep A Light. It’s her celebrated memoir of life with her husband and their children when they were lighthouse keepers for 35 years on Bon Portage Island, Shelburne County.

It was wonderful to attend the official WFNS announcement, revealing all the authors shortlisted in various categories. In my category, there are two other books, Mothershift: Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage, by Jessie Harrold, and In Search of Puffins: Stories of Loss, Light and Flight, by Marjorie Simmins. The winner will be announced at a gala on June 1.

And then I received another email, saying The Golden Daughter was being submitted for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, administered by the Wilfrid Laurier University. The Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction is a unique award - the only one offered in Canada for the genre. Established in 1991 by writer and literary journalist Edna Staebler, it recognizes a Canadian writer of a first or second published book with a Canadian locale and/or significance.

I’m so honoured and grateful that my mother’s story of being a slave worker in Nazi Germany in World War 2 is getting some notice. Not many people know about the innocent people who were dragged out of their homes and schools, or off the streets, and set to work as slaves in Germany.

Two nominations in one week. I'm pretty sure that would have prompted one of my mother's favourite expressions of surprise: 'Unbelievable!'