Johanna: Above and Beyond by J.C. Rosen
[caption id="attachment_9405" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Beyond the Margins Above and Beyond Award 2012"]
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Late last year, Beyond the Margins opened up nominations for their first annual Above and Beyond Award. The purpose is to recognize an exemplary writer who helps writers, especially one who does so with little obvious self-reward. Out of the more than two dozen nominees – nominated multiple times in some cases –the 2012 recipient is none other than our dear Fearless Leader, Johanna Harness!
The Beyond the Margins Above and Beyond Award is a perfect fit for Johanna. She began the Twitter hashtag #amwriting without a thought to setting up her author platform. Short for “I am writing,” the hash is now a rallying call for thousands of writers around the world. Johanna set up this site, amwriting.org, in order to support the community on Twitter. It affords users of the hash a listing in the author directory as well as the opportunity to be scheduled to blog and/or write a piece of flash to be featured. Johanna arranges it all herself, including emergency reformatting during unscheduled downtimes. Pretty nifty, huh?
You can’t get to know Johanna without seeing how generous she is. As though setting up the hashtag and taking care of the community site weren’t enough, Johanna stays front and center. She spends early mornings (and I mean early!) on Twitter sharing encouragement and coffee with #amwriting. She also drops into the hash at various times during the course of her day and evening. During NaNoWriMo 2011, Johanna led wordsprints on the hashtag for all projects, from NaNo to editing and revising. Those are just the group activities. She’s a tremendous help to individuals as well, all behind the scenes.
One would think Johanna’s energy levels couldn’t handle more. I don’t know how she does it, but she maintains a busy family life, is a talented photographer, is a shepherdess complete with a house lamb – oh, and she’s a compelling author of YA and MG novels and short stories. I am honored to call her my friend and mentor. She’s well suited to being named recipient of The Beyond the Margins 2012 Above and Beyond Award.
[/caption]Late last year, Beyond the Margins opened up nominations for their first annual Above and Beyond Award. The purpose is to recognize an exemplary writer who helps writers, especially one who does so with little obvious self-reward. Out of the more than two dozen nominees – nominated multiple times in some cases –the 2012 recipient is none other than our dear Fearless Leader, Johanna Harness!
The Beyond the Margins Above and Beyond Award is a perfect fit for Johanna. She began the Twitter hashtag #amwriting without a thought to setting up her author platform. Short for “I am writing,” the hash is now a rallying call for thousands of writers around the world. Johanna set up this site, amwriting.org, in order to support the community on Twitter. It affords users of the hash a listing in the author directory as well as the opportunity to be scheduled to blog and/or write a piece of flash to be featured. Johanna arranges it all herself, including emergency reformatting during unscheduled downtimes. Pretty nifty, huh?
You can’t get to know Johanna without seeing how generous she is. As though setting up the hashtag and taking care of the community site weren’t enough, Johanna stays front and center. She spends early mornings (and I mean early!) on Twitter sharing encouragement and coffee with #amwriting. She also drops into the hash at various times during the course of her day and evening. During NaNoWriMo 2011, Johanna led wordsprints on the hashtag for all projects, from NaNo to editing and revising. Those are just the group activities. She’s a tremendous help to individuals as well, all behind the scenes.
One would think Johanna’s energy levels couldn’t handle more. I don’t know how she does it, but she maintains a busy family life, is a talented photographer, is a shepherdess complete with a house lamb – oh, and she’s a compelling author of YA and MG novels and short stories. I am honored to call her my friend and mentor. She’s well suited to being named recipient of The Beyond the Margins 2012 Above and Beyond Award.
Congratulations, Johanna!
