I enjoyed this story on NPR about Paul Harding’s novel Tinkers, which just won the Pulitzer Prize. For one thing, when Harding learned he had won, he reacted exactly as I imagine I would:

“I came as close to actually fainting as I think I ever have, because I literally just could not believe what I saw when it came up on the website,” Harding says with a laugh. “And I kept refreshing and it just kept coming up Tinkers, Tinkers, Tinkers.”

I think I do a version of that every time I get good writing news.

Anyway, first Harding couldn’t get his (Pulitzer-prize-winning) novel published and almost gave up on it. Then Bellevue Literary Press, a small independent press, decided to publish it. Book Passages, a bookstore in the Bay Area, featured it, people began to talk, word of mouth spread, and soon Harding’s book was getting reviewed in The New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times. Fast forward to now: Pulitzer Prize and a deal with Random House.

It just goes to show–people may be all about nonfat milk these days, but cream still rises to the top.