Congratulations to fellow bookblogger Jessica Stockton Bagnulo (far left) on winning the Brooklyn Public Library's annual business plan competition with her proposal for an independent bookstore, a dream she's long nurtured and discussed on her Written Nerd blog—which is where she posted a first-person account of the awards ceremony last week. "The Citibank rep responsible for creating the contest and the head judge told me that it was my presentation that made the difference," she recalls, "that the judges were skeptical about the wisdom of opening an independent bookstore given all they'd heard, but I sold them on the idea with my data and my passion." Rock on. Now if we can just get somebody with her passion in Queens!

(photo of Stockton Bagnulo with Brooklyn Public Library executive director Dionne Mack-Harvin: NY Daily News)