Thanks to all those who voted for me in Connect Savannah’s 2014 Best Of Savannah readers’ poll.
In the Media category, I was chosen Best Local Columnist (edging out Connect’s Jessica Leigh Lebos) and Savannah Unplugged was runner-up to Yo Yenta (Jessica’s blog!) for Best Local Blog.
I was frankly really hoping that our relatively new music blog hissing lawns (founded in Sept. 2013) would snag a win or a runner-up in some category. Maybe next year.
I really should know this for sure one way or the other, but I think maybe I’ve won the best local columnist award every year since 2007. That’s certainly a testament to the integrity of the vote tabulation; if the voting wasn’t honest, why in the world would a freelance columnist for the daily paper keep winning over the fine columnists at Connect itself?
Of course, the key word there is “daily” — with three columns a week in the Savannah Morning News (two in the Exchange, one in Do), I write 156 columns a year. I’ve been saturating the market for so many years now that name recognition alone is surely a big help in a contest like this.
And I of course would not be winning these contests held by a rival publication if not for the Savannah Morning News itself. They have given me broad latitude over the years, and my editors have been wonderfully flexible, especially in recent years. When I started writing columns in 2000 as a freelancer, I could never have imagined that I’d be doing the same thing 14 years later.
I’ve been a little slack here on Savannah Unplugged since launching hissing lawns last year, but I’m going to try to keep it as active as possible going forward.
Please check out the Facebook pages both for Savannah Unplugged and for hissing lawns. I’m on Twitter @billdawers, and hissing lawns is of course at @hissinglawns.
Cheers
Bill