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Take the Wheel: The Award Reception at the Newberry Library in Chicago
I had been planning this trip for over a month. And when I finally boarded the early flight out of Tampa on a Friday morning, it still felt a little unreal.
The 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards reception was being held at the Newberry Library in Chicago, one of the country’s great independent research libraries, tucked into the old downtown. I had never attended anything like this. A room full of authors, a stage, medals. The kind of event I used to read about, not attend.
The flight landed around noon. By the time I cleared the airport and got into an Uber heading toward the Whitehall Hotel, Chicago was already doing its thing. Light rain, 67 degrees. After leaving Tampa at five in the morning, where it was already pushing past 90, stepping into that cool, gray Chicago air felt like a gift. I had packed a suit. Wearing it in Tampa heat would have been a different story entirely.
I had a quick lunch, settled in, and by 5 AM I was walking toward the Newberry Library.
The reception started with a glass of champagne and professional photos at the entrance. From there, guests were welcomed into the main hall to mingle before the ceremony. That part caught me off guard in the best way. I had expected to feel like an outsider in a room full of established authors. Instead, I found myself in real conversations, people sharing their stories, their processes, what their books meant to them and why they wrote them. Writers are surprisingly good company.
Then the ceremony began.
One by one, winners were invited to the stage to receive their medals. Some people walked up two or three times. I went up once. One medal, one category — Business — and I was completely fine with that. I wrote Take the Wheel for one specific reader: the professional who has to lead, influence, and deliver results without the authority to demand any of it. One medal in that category is exactly right.
By the end of the evening, a small group of us — seven people total — decided the night wasn’t finished yet. I mentioned that my hotel had a restaurant I’d been eating at since I arrived, and it turned out more than three of my new friends were staying at the same place. Five minutes from the library. Of course they were.
Dinner turned into drinks. Drinks turned into a tour of a few bars in the downtown area. I got back to my hotel well past midnight, fully exhausted and genuinely happy. I went straight to bed.
The next morning I had a few hours before my flight back to Tampa. I spent them walking. Downtown Chicago is unlike anything I expected, every other block feels like a history lesson interrupted by a glass skyscraper. I took a photo at Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, the famous reflective sculpture in the heart of the city. Standing in front of it, watching the skyline curve and fold in the reflection, I thought about how strange and good the last 24 hours had been.
I will go back to Chicago. That’s already decided.
As for the medal itself, I kept thinking about the last time I held one. I was a teenager, training for the junior Olympic Games as a competitive swimmer. That medal came from years of early mornings and chlorine and pushing through when everything in me wanted to stop.
This one came from a different kind of discipline. Six months of writing a book I believed needed to exist. Six more months learning how to publish it independently, with no agent, no traditional publisher, and no blueprint. Then submitting it to a national award competition where the judging is blind, no names, no marketing, no reputation to lean on. Just the work.
I am not a teenager anymore. But standing on that stage at the Newberry Library, holding that medal, I recognized the feeling.
It’s the same one.
Take the Wheel: How to Influence Anyone and Be the Leader People Want to Follow is available on Amazon. The book was named a Finalist in the Business category of the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.