Erin Entrada Kelly was already cozy in bed, in her jammies, on Sunday night, all set to do some writing. “I had signed up to do a generative writing workshop with Nova Ren Suma—one of my favorite authors,” Kelly told PW. “I was working on my prompt at about nine o’clock when the phone rang. I thought, ‘There’s no way this is going to be the call,’ but I answered it, and sure enough, it was the committee.” On the other end of the line, a voice asked, “Is this Erin?” When Kelly answered in the affirmative, “They told me who they were, and immediately I kind of froze,” she said. “They said, ‘We have good news for you,’ and they told me.”

The committee informed her that she had won the Newbery Medal for her novel The First State of Being (Greenwillow), in which anxious 12-year-old Michael is determined to learn his future and alleviate all his worry when he meets a teen time traveler. This latest prize will sit alongside Kelly’s 2018 Newbery for Hello, Universe (also Greenwillow), as she becomes just the seventh author to achieve the feat of dual Newbery wins. (Additionally, her novel We Dream of Space was named a Newbery Honor title in 2021.)

From that point in Kelly’s evening, things get a little fuzzy. After learning the news, “I think I screamed pretty loudly, and then my dog started barking because I was screaming,” she said with a laugh. “And I just shut my computer because I wasn’t going to finish the prompts, obviously.”

Other celebratory calls arrived, including one from her editor Virginia Duncan, v-p and publisher of Greenwillow. “She was my editor for Hello, Universe and has been my editor since my debut novel,” Kelly noted. “I genuinely believe that I would not have these accolades without her. She sees the heart of everything I write and is able to pull it to the forefront and push me and make me better. So that phone call was a lot of screaming and a lot of joy. And Virginia is not a very loud, screamy person, but that’s how joyful we were!”

A subsequent call from her agent, Sara Crowe of Sara Crowe Literary, was met with more joy and more screaming. “I’ve been with her for 10 years,” Kelly said. “There’s just something really special about having the same team for a long time,” she added. “I’ve been so fortunate to have an author home with Greenwillow and to have this long-term relationship with my editor and my agent.”

Riding high on all the congrats, Kelly wondered, “How am I going to go to sleep after all this?” She eventually did get some shuteye, but the night’s rest didn’t entirely bring clarity. “I woke up this morning and turned to my husband and said, ‘Did I win the Newbery again?’ and he said, ‘Yes you did!’ ” she giggled. And if she still wasn’t sure, she had backup confirmation. “This morning, Virginia and Sara separately sent me the same message, which was, WE WON THE NEWBERY AGAIN! in all caps with like a million exclamation points.”

Kelly is still mulling over what a fitting “fantastic” celebration might be, but in the meantime, “I did drink champagne at lunch, so that’s something. Got a cake. My husband brought me flowers,” she said. “It’s just kind of funny, because after the announcement, we were all ‘yay!’ and drinking champagne, and my phone was blowing up. Now I’m kind of like, now what are we going to do?,” she said.

On a more reflective note, she added, “With Hello, Universe, it definitely took a while to process. And, this is going to sound a little cheesy, but I’m going to say it anyway. The celebration is just kind of always ongoing. It’s every day. This is an incredible accomplishment, and it changed my life the first time around. And I’m sure this will change my life in new ways. And so that’s almost the celebration—the days ahead.”