The List is Out - Edgar Nominees

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce on the 203rd anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2011.  The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at our 66th Gala Banquet, April 26, 2012 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York, New York.


BEST NOVEL

The Ranger by Ace Atkins (Penguin Group USA ˆ G.P. Putnam‚s Sons)
Gone by Mo Hayder (Grove/Atlantic ˆ Atlantic Monthly Press)
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur Books)
1222 by Anne Holt (Simon & Schuster - Scribner)
Field Gray by Philip Kerr (Penguin Group USA - G.P. Putnam‚s Sons ˆ Marion Wood Books)


BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Red on Red by Edward Conlon (Random House Publishing Group ˆ Spiegel & Grau)
Last to Fold by David Duffy (Thomas Dunne Books)
All Cry Chaos by Leonard Rosen (The Permanent Press)
Bent Road by Lori Roy (Penguin Group USA - Dutton)
Purgatory Chasm by Steve Ulfelder (Minotaur Books ˆ Thomas Dunne Books)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Hachette Book Group ˆ Orbit Books)
The Faces of Angels by Lucretia Grindle (Felony & Mayhem Press)
The Dog Sox by Russell Hill (Pleasure Boat Studio ˆ Caravel Mystery Books)
Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (HarperCollins Publishers ˆ Harper Paperbacks)
Vienna Twilight by Frank Tallis (Random House Trade Paperbacks)


BEST FACT CRIME

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins (Crown Publishing)
The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge by T.J. English (HarperCollins ˆ William Morrow)
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (Random House - Doubleday)
Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender by Steve Miller (Penguin Group USA - Berkley)
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter by Mark Seal (Penguin Group USA - Viking)


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of our Time by Dan Burstein, Arne de Keijzer & John-Henri Holmberg (St. Martin‚s Griffin)
Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making by John Curran (HarperCollins)
On Conan Doyle: Or, the Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda (Princeton University Press)
Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film by Philippa Gates (SUNY Press)
Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds and Marnie by Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick (University of Illinois Press)


BEST SHORT STORY

"Marley‚s Revolution" ˆ Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by John C. Boland (Dell Magazines)
"Tomorrow‚s Dead" ˆ Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by David Dean (Dell Magazines)
"The Adakian Eagle" ˆ Down These Strange Streets by Bradley Denton (Penguin Group USA ˆ Ace Books)
"Lord John and the Plague of Zombies" ˆ Down These Strange Streets by Diana Gabaldon (Penguin Group USA ˆ Ace Books)
"The Case of Death and Honey" ˆ A Study in Sherlock by Neil Gaiman (Random House Publishing Group ˆ Bantam Books)
"The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train" ˆ Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Peter Turnbull (Dell Magazines)


BEST JUVENILE

Horton Halfpott by Tom Angleberger (Abrams ˆ Amulet Books)
It Happened on a Train by Mac Barnett (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Vanished by Sheela Chari (Disney Book Group ˆ Disney Hyperion)
Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby (Scholastic Press)
The Wizard of Dark Street by Shawn Thomas Odyssey (Egmont USA)


BEST YOUNG ADULT

Shelter by Harlan Coben (Penguin Young Readers Group ˆ G.P. Putnam‚s Sons)
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson (Penguin Young Readers Group ˆ G.P. Putnam‚s Sons)
The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall (Random House Children‚s Books ˆ Knopf BFYR)
The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines (Macmillan Children‚s Publishing Group ˆ Roaring Creek Press)
Kill You Last by Todd Strasser (Egmont USA)


BEST PLAY

Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club by Jeffrey Hatcher (Arizona Theatre Company, Phoenix, AZ)
The Game‚s Afoot by Ken Ludwig (Cleveland Playhouse, Cleveland, OH)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

"Innocence" ˆ Blue Bloods, Teleplay by Siobhan Byrne O‚Connor (CBS Productions)
"The Life Inside" ˆ Justified, Teleplay by Benjamin Cavell(FX Productions and Sony Pictures Television)
"Part 1" ˆ Whitechapel, Teleplay by Ben Court & Caroline Ip (BBC America)
"Pilot" ˆ Homeland, Teleplay by Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon & Gideon Raff (Showtime)
"Mask" ˆ Law & Order: SVU, Teleplay by Speed Weed (Wolf Films/Universal Media Studios)


ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"A Good Man of Business" ˆ Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by David Ingram (Dell Magazines)


GRAND MASTER

Martha Grimes


RAVEN AWARDS

M is for Mystery Bookstore, San Mateo, CA
Molly Weston, Meritorious Mysteries


ELLERY QUEEN AWARD

Joe Meyers of the Connecticut Post/Hearst Media News Group


THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA‚s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 25, 2012)

Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books)
Come and Find Me by Hallie Ephron (HarperCollins Publishers ˆ William Morrow)
Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick (Minotaur Books)
Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry (Crown Publishing Group)
Murder Most Persuasive by Tracy Kiely (Minotaur Books ˆ Thomas Dunne Books)



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The EDGAR (and logo) are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.


It's all better with friends.

Tattered Cover's Espresso Machine

I've heard about this, but not yet seen it.

The Tattered Cover Bookstore has three locations in the Denver area, and this one isn't very convenient to me, but I might just have to take the trip. TC is dedicated to readers and very author-friendly. It's easily one of the best bookstores in America today.

Here is what one independent bookstore is doing to stay viable in a wildly changing environment:





CR: Beyond Reach by Karin Slaughter.

It's all better with friends.

Stinkers and Gold, Stinkers and Gold

At this very second, I'm reading through the last sixty-five or seventy pages of the manuscript I'm in the middle of writing to try and get back in the flow of the story. Literally, I have them sitting right next to my hands as I write this post.

I may have toasted during the holidays, but they made toast out of me as far as my work is concerned, and this is the best and quickest way I can think of to get back on track.

The point of this exercise is not to edit, but to get caught back up in the plot and the characters. And it's working. But here's what's weird: some of these scenes are in dire need of editing, which doesn't surprise me too much, other than wondering how I wrote such drivel. Others, even though this is the shitty first draft stage, don't need touched. (Well, a caveat here: no one else has seen them, so there is probably something that needs fixin'. Just nowhere near some others I'm reading.)

Why are some of them stinkers and the others gold? And how can I make sure, when I'm committed to bichok, that I'm in the gold mode?

Writers, do you have control over this? Please share.
Readers, have you ever read a published book and been aware that certain scenes needed work?



CR: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.

It's all better with friends.

Dream a Little for 2012

This post originally appeared at Meanderings and Muses, the wonderful blog of Kaye Barley. Because it's almost 2012, and a lot of people are thinking about what they want to accomplish next year, I thought I'd re-post it here.

Happy New Year.

DREAM A LITTLE

One day, I quit dreaming—and it took me over forty years to figure it out.

At some point, it became easier to turn my back on a dream, to let it fade, then to not be perfect each step on the way toward making that dream a reality. (Perfection is really a stupid concept, but that’s another topic.)

What I had, when I quit dreaming, were flat goals. Goals that belonged to other people. Goals I committed to for some reason: to keep my job; to make a loved one happy; because everyone else had a similar goal. They weren’t wrong, they just weren’t mine.

A few weeks ago, while writing my morning pages (if you haven’t read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, what are you waiting for?), I recognized the little girl who used to dream (with a certain amount of fearlessness) had stopped, and I began work to get her back.

I heard this as recently as last week: “Unless it’s specific, with a timeline, it’s not a goal. It’s just a dream.”

Just a dream.

A little belittling to dreams, if you ask me.

I’m not saying my life for forty years consisted of dull days and a series of tasks. Far from it. But I am saying I missed the richness—the possibility—dreams provide.

How do you keep a soul in your goals? Inspiration in your perspiration?

Dream.

I’ve decided a dream is a little like a new idea for a novel. I toss it around for a while. Turn it over. Is it something I can build a whole story around—a life around? If it feels good, grabs me, then I begin to plot it out. Or, for those of you are more of a “live life by the seat of your pants” kind of person, dive in until your dream begins to take shape. If the idea has staying power, it’s full speed ahead.

The best goals begin as dreams. The best dreams are your dreams. Dreams that fill your soul. They demand you go after them. It’s your pursuit that makes the dream stronger and turns it into (gasp!) a goal.

Before you kick yourself for not accomplishing everything on your list in 2011, consider whether those things were your goals or someone else’s. And before you begin to contemplate what you would like to have happen in 2012, dream a little.

CR: Just finished reading an ARC from Debbi Mack. It was terrific. Be looking for Riptide in February!

It's all better with friends.

An Invitation

Today is "my" day at Crime Fiction Collective. I'm talking about keeping track of all of those details, especially those details crime writers have to deal with.

Actually, I'm asking for help.

Got any?


CR: Incinerator by Tim Hallinan

It's all better with friends.

OT: Crockpot Dressing

To be honest, I found a picture of a cuter dog, but this one seemed to epitomize everything we have to be thankful for. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

\

Never Dry Crockpot Dressing

1 cup butter or margarine, melted (You can get away with using a little less, but heck, it's Thanksgiving!)

2 cups chopped onion (I usually add a tad more, but then we love onion in our food.)

2 cups chopped celery

1/4 cup parsley (fresh or dried)

2 cups canned mushrooms, drained (I use fresh sliced.)

2 eggs, beaten

3 1/2 to 4 1/2 cups chicken broth, or enough to moisten well

13 cups dry bread, cubed (I can never find unseasoned, so it takes about two of the Italian loaves from the bakery.)

1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning

2 tsp salt

2 tsp sage

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp marjoram

Melt butter or margarine in LARGE fry pan and saute onion and celery until soft. Mix with remaining ingredients and toss well. Pack in large crockpot. Cover. Cook on high for 45 minutes, then turn to low and continue cooking for 6-8 hours. 

Oh . . . the aroma!!!!!

CR: Incinerator by Tim Hallinan

It's all better with friends.

1940's Noir, Kelli Stanley Style

Read and write about the 1940s? Whatever your answer, you'll enjoy this interview with Kelli Stanley.






CR: I'll make a decision about a new read tonight. I love the anticipation.

It's all better with friends.