In a voice that might echo from the chambers of a mind deeply attuned to the rhythm of thought and the shimmer of feeling, as the CEO of The Historical Fiction Company LLC, I must say this:
Congratulations—yes, truly, to all the winners of this year’s categories. Yet, let us pause, linger a moment in the complexity of what it is we mean by “winning.” For how is one to judge, to weigh, to measure the exquisite labor of those who take up the pen, who immerse themselves in histories, in lives that pulse and thrum with the bygone and the still-present? The books—ah, the books! This year, more than most, seemed to speak not only to the mind but to the spirit, to that ineffable something within us which recognises effort and truth. It was oh so difficult to decide, for every submission seemed a glimmer, a spark of something whole and rare. To you all, I say: what you have wrought is no small thing.
Those five stars we so often bestow shined so frequently this year, but it is not frequency; it is brilliance. The work, year after year, ascends, each author reaching higher, striving, dreaming, setting a standard that only grows more luminous as time slips quietly on. Well done, each of you, for making the ascent.
Again, this fleeting video, imperfect perhaps but sincere, must suffice for this year's announcement. Yet, even from this distance, I feel the threads of connection, the journeys you have written pulling me closer to the world we share - this wonderful world of historical fiction. Bravo to you all!!
And now, at last, at long last, we come to the moment you have waited for, the one towards which this whole ceremony bends, like a river rushing to its sea...
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