Five Years With You

When Kristal Shaff and I got together and started a critique group in 2011, we decided to call ourselves

Operation Awesome! 

The name was Amparo Ortiz's idea, and it just fit. It was the era of WriteOnCon and Query Shark and Querytracker forums, where Kristal and I "met." Pretty soon after forming our little group, we decided to start blogging together, having no idea how this little adventure would propel us into the heart of the writer-blogger community and connect us to the pulse of the industry. Kristal invented Oliver, that adorable owl to match the blog background we'd nicked from thecutestblogontheblock.com, and an institution was born.

We launched with our first Mystery Agent contest, judged by Mandy Hubbard, author of Prada and Prejudice and agent with D4EO Literary Agency. Now she heads up the Emerald City Literary Agency.

Most of our operatives over the past five years have published books and moved on to various exciting endeavors beyond the exciting busy-ness of Operation Awesome's debut author interviews and agent-judged contests. I've been so blessed to know them and to work with many of them behind the scenes of this blog. Life has changed so much for me personally since those early days of patrolling the Mystery Agent entries and twitter-stalking agents.

When we started, my family looked like this:

Today, my family looks like this:

I am the last of the original OA founders, but the current operatives are continuing our original hope of connecting with and giving back to the online writing community through this collaborative project. As community projects and family are now blessing my life with nearly constant activity, and my own writing ambitions have changed significantly from what they were in 2011, it's time to say my goodbyes to this blog's readers. It's been amazing getting to know many of you and reading your work. You inspire me in more ways than one. I will still write reviews from time to time and you can contact me at katrina.lantz@gmail.com.

Thank you for the opportunity of connecting with you through writing. 

Stay Awesome.