Made by Mom Gift Guide: Mooseclumps

We love some Mooseclumps at my house. That's the book of clever, funny, thought-provoking, witty and sometimes just plain silly poems for kids written by Ryan Bliss, a Cary dad and lawyer by day.

Bliss quickly built an online following as he regularly published new poems on his website. He eventually self-published those poems in book form last spring.

And it's been a ride ever since.

"I've been hard at work marketing the book and getting it into as many local bookstores as possible (most recently, Quail Ridge in Raleigh)," he tells me. "I was thrilled to learn that the book was awarded a Silver Medal in the 2013 Readers' Favorite Book Awards as well as a Gold Medal for Children's Books in the 2013 Moonbeam Awards."

In the Readers' Favorite Book Awards, Bliss was pitted against submissions from major publishers such as Random House, Penguin, Harper Collins and Simon & Schuster. The win included an invitation to the Miami International Book Fair this month. 

Bliss has some new projects in the works - another poetry book in the same style as Mooseclumps and another children's book that will be completely different. 

"I'm sticking to the children's book genre, but I'll be branching out from poetry with this one," he tells me. "It's still in the early stages."

Congratulations, Ryan! And thank you to his son for encouraging him to put it all down on paper!