Powell's results in.

Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR, (one of the coolest independents around) celebrated the tenth anniversary of powells.com by sponsoring an essay contest. The contest, A Decade of Reading, asked contestants to write an essay answering the question, "What was your most memorable reading experience of the last ten years?"

Powell's received thousands of submissions and chose twenty-five finalists then left it up to visitors to powells.com to vote in the top essay.

Voting closed October 8th and results won't be officially announced until October 19th, but I got a congratulatory message today telling me that my essay, "There Is Always Biloxi," was one of the ten runners-up of the twenty-five essay finalists. My prize is $100 worth of books from Powell's.

First place, with its prize of $1000 worth of books, would've been even cooler, but I'm pleased as punch to have made the cut to the first twenty-five and then to have earned enough votes to make the top ten runners-up.