Photo courtesy of Erin Entrada Kelly.

I’ll start with thank-yous. I’d like to thank the ALA and ALSC, especially the Newbery committee and its chair, Maeve Visser Knoth. I’d like to thank my editor, Virginia Duncan, and the entire team at Greenwillow Books and HarperCollins, including art director Sylvie Le Floc’h, jacket artist Devin Kurtz, copyeditor Laaren Brown, and managing editor Tim Smith. My agent, Sara Crowe. I’d like to thank my family, who are here tonight, especially my husband, Danny, who is my first reader, my biggest fan, and my everything. I’d also like to congratulate Ruth Behar, Lesa Cline-Ransome, Kate O’Shaughnessy, and Chanel Miller. It’s an honor to share this night with you.

It’s surreal to be standing here for a second time. I still haven’t recovered from 2018, and honestly? I hope I never do.

I recently had a conversation with Rebecca Stead, who wrote When You Reach Me, which won the Newbery Medal in 2010 and was an inspiration for The First State of Being; we realized that we had a lot in common when we were kids. We were both incredibly influenced by the world of what-ifs. What if I made the wrong choice yesterday? What if I make the wrong choice tomorrow? What if I’m making the wrong choice right now? If I choose this, how many things am I un-choosing? If I choose that, what will happen — or not happen? What if I have friends who I’ll never meet? And so on.

This type of anxiety is very familiar to my main character, Michael, who struggles to live in the present moment. Living “in the moment” has always been difficult for me too. That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book. To teach myself how.

Erin (age ten) and her cat, Pepper, working on a novel. Photo courtesy of Erin Entrada Kelly.

In my childhood home, my mother had the Serenity Prayer framed on our wall. I’m sure most of you are familiar with some version of it — God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. I would read that prayer every day and think to myself, You know what? I don’t have the serenity. I don’t have the courage, and I don’t know the difference.

In my twenties, a friend said I should try meditation. I went to a meditation center. Everyone sat ­crisscross-applesauce, and we were told to close our eyes, take deep breaths, and sit in silence for fifteen minutes. I closed my eyes for exactly one second. I spent the rest of the time looking at everyone, wondering how they could sit so still.

I didn’t try meditation again until my thirties. This time it was guided meditation, where they talk to you the whole time. The guide said, “I want you to imagine a staircase. We’ll go down the staircase step by step.” I closed my eyes. Picture a staircase, picture a staircase. Okay. How about a carpeted staircase? No, too hard to clean. Marble? No, not marble. Too fancy and cold and unwelcoming. A steel ­staircase, maybe? No, too industrial. Wood would be best. A nice, simple wooden s­taircase. But not too old, because I want the stairs to be sturdy and I don’t want to get splinters in my feet. Okay. Nice, modern, well-sanded wooden staircase. But wait—I should probably have a handrail. I don’t want to fall down the stairs. Too precarious to have a staircase without a handrail. That’s just practical and logical. Handrail it is. Okay. I’ve got a nice wooden staircase with a handrail. But where is this staircase, exactly? Is it in a house? Is it in the clouds? Is it in the middle of a desert? What’s the s­etting? A random staircase with nothing else around seems disturbing. And if it’s ­floating in the air, that’s even worse because I’m afraid of heights.

Finally, I decide — wooden staircase, handrail, in the middle of a modest log cabin — and ding! Meditation over. Everyone traveled down their staircases except me.

I leave meditation behind until 2023, when I find out about color walks. This is where you go on a walk and find as many things of a certain color as you can. So I go on my first color walk. I choose red as my color. I see something red. I take out my phone because I want to post to Instagram that I am on a meditative color walk so everyone will know that I’m in tune with nature and living in the moment. Nothing says “living in the moment” and “enjoying God’s creations” like an Instagram post.

Around this time, I’m invited to speak at a conference in the Catskills, and I’m excited because I know it’s going to be gorgeous there in the fall. I have a long to-do list that I need to finish before I go. I wait until the very last minute to cross everything off — pay some bills, get a mammogram, finish some edits. Once it’s all done, off I go.

We’re staying in a wonderful old resort that’s been in the same family for generations. I go to my room and see a few ladybugs on the ceiling. I’m immediately worried because I know I won’t be able to sleep if there are bugs in my room, even if they’re one of the only acceptable ones. When I get to the front desk, another guest is chatting about how there are ladybugs in her room and isn’t that wonderful because ladybugs are good luck, and now I don’t want to make a thing out of it, so I decide to go on a walk instead because it’s a beautiful day and I want to “live in the moment.”

I tell the people at the desk that I’m going on a hike and the woman says, Okay, just be careful of the bears! And I say, Excuse me? And she says, If you see any, just start singing really, really loudly and they’ll go away. And I think, This sounds like a good reason for me not to go on a walk. But then I think, No, Erin, you need to live in the moment. It’s a beautiful day in the Catskills! Carpe diem! So I head out and consider my set list. If I encounter a bear, what am I going to sing? I decide I’m going to open with “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” then segue into “Landslide” — the original version, of course. If all else fails, I’ll sing “Happy Birthday.” But I don’t want to confuse the bear because it probably won’t be its birthday, so maybe I’ll do more Whitney Houston.

Pretty soon I’m walking, listening to the birds, looking up at the trees, noticing the way the sun shines through the leaves. I get out my phone so everyone can witness me living in this moment. But there’s no service. I’m instantly frustrated. I take pictures anyway and plan to post them later.

When I get back to my room, I immediately notice two things: I have a voicemail from an unfamiliar number, and there are way more ladybugs than there were before.

I post my pics and check the message. It’s from the radiology clinic where I got my mammogram. They tell me I need to schedule a follow-up ultrasound. I put off calling my doctor because cancer doesn’t run in my ­family — certainly not breast cancer — and I know follow-ups are fairly common, so making the appointment is not my first priority. I’m more concerned about the ladybugs. I spend the rest of the night concocting an intricate lighting system to lure the ladybugs to one corner of the room. I set up lamps. I move tables. I turn lights on and off. I assume the ladybugs will be attracted to the light and they’re going to go into the corner. It works for the most part, but there are some who stay behind, and I can’t sleep because I’m worried that these ladybugs are going to fall on my face or get in my hair or I’m accidentally going to swallow one while I’m unconscious.

After several sleepless nights in the Catskills, I’m back at home, getting the ultrasound. Any time I get a medical procedure, I ask about five thousand questions. Not about my health, but about the person and the technology. How did you get interested in ultrasounds? How do ultrasounds work? How can you tell one blob from another? The ultrasound technician is chatty at first. Then she gets quiet. She finishes up and says, I’ll be right back. She returns with a doctor. This doctor tells me that I need to have a biopsy, but I shouldn’t worry too much, very often these turn out to be nothing. But I should make the appointment ASAP.

A few days later I get the biopsy. The doctor tells me it will be a week before the results come back. I go home. I pass the time by signing tip-in sheets for The First State of Being and playing solitaire and phone games. My husband and I can think of nothing but the biopsy results.

I got the call while I was signing tip-in sheets. I had cancer — but not just any cancer. It was grade 3, which meant it was spreading incredibly fast, and it was triple-negative, which is the hardest breast cancer to treat and the most aggressive. I’ll need surgery and radiation, but first — chemo and immunotherapy. Within two weeks, I’m meeting with an oncologist for my first infusion. She tells me that I will be given the harshest regimen available, and it will be difficult, but side effects vary. I think, Maybe my side effects won’t be that bad. But they are. I suffered tremendously. I could not escape my present moment. I desperately wanted to go back to the past. And I couldn’t imagine my future.

I spent many of my days waiting for the epiphany everyone said was ­coming — the perspective that people always talked about, where they realized how much they’d taken for granted. The trouble was, I had a clear perspective on my life before cancer. I loved my life. I was doing exactly what I always dreamed of when I was eight years old. I wanted to be the next Judy Blume. And although I would never be so presumptuous as to call myself the next Judy Blume, I was writing and publishing books, and I’d received this incredible award in 2018 and another in 2021, and there wasn’t a day that went by when I wasn’t aware of how fortunate I was, how lucky, to have so many incredible things happen in my life. I had an amazing husband. My daughter was grown and thriving in her own career. At my lowest moments, I would cry and cry and cry and wonder, What lesson am I learning? What lesson am I learning?

About the Newbery call: "I was on Zoom doing a writing prompt hour with Nova Ren Suma when I got [it]. The phone rang while I was taking this picture to post to Instagram." Photo courtesy of Erin Entrada Kelly.

Thankfully, I have an answer. And it involves everyone in this room. That perspective I was waiting for, that serenity? It arrived and continues to arrive. Because while I was going through all this pain and agony, I was inundated with love and warmth and care from all corners of the world. Many people in this room were part of that chorus. When I announced my diagnosis on Instagram, I was not prepared for the response. I knew I had loving friends and family, of course, and I expected a few messages of support and encouragement. What I got was so much more. In a world that is increasingly dark and disappointing and sorrowful and frightening, I was reminded that there are people — many, many people — who are kind, compassionate, caring, and empathetic. People who take time to send blankets and pillows and hand lotion and lip balm and snacks and wigs and all the things people need to get through chemotherapy. I was reminded that there are people who take time to send messages and gifts and cards and long, long letters. People who share their personal journeys so you can feel seen and cared for.

And I’m not just talking about friends and family. I’m talking about people I have never even met. People who know me only through my books. And the reason it is possible for ­readers to know me in that way — or any writer, for that matter — is because of the people in this room. Librarians, educators, activists. You who put books into the hands of readers and fight for their right to access the stories they need, when they need them, and champion anti-censorship and the freedom to read. There are many writers and illustrators in this room, and I believe I speak for all of them when I say: ­Without you, they never would have known us. More importantly, we never would have known them.

I still struggle with carpe diem, but I can say with a full, honest heart that I am incredibly grateful to be in this room, right now, celebrating this incredible achievement with you.

I am still a woman who looks to the future. I am still a woman who mourns the past. But I am also a woman who recognizes the small ways each one of us influences the present moment. I am a woman who doesn’t want ladybugs in her room but won’t lose sleep over them anymore. And I am a woman who is grateful for all of you — those I know, and those I have yet to meet. Thank you.

Erin Entrada Kelly is the winner of the 2025 Newbery Medal for The First State of Being, published by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Children's Books. Her acceptance speech was delivered at the annual conference of the American Library Association in Philadelphia on June 29, 2025. From the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Special Issue: ALA Awards. For more speeches, profiles, and articles, click the tag ALA 2025.

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