Edgar Winners

I wasn't at the Edgar's banquet on Thursday, but MWA announced the winners right afterward.
Ta Da!

The Grand Masters were James Lee Burke and Sue Grafton--there couldn't be better picks than those two.

BEST NOVEL Blue Heaven by C.J. Box
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR The Foreigner by Francie Lin
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL China Lake by Meg Gardiner
BEST FACT CRIME American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories by Dr. Harry Lee Poe
BEST SHORT STORY "Skinhead Central" - The Blue Religion by T. Jefferson Parker
BEST JUVENILE The Postcard by Tony Abbott
BEST YOUNG ADULT Paper Towns by John Green (BEST PLAY The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY "Prayer of the Bone" - Wire in the Blood, Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY In Bruges, Screenplay by Martin McDonagh ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD "Buckner's Error" - Queens Noir by Joseph Guglielmelli

RAVEN AWARDS Edgar Allan Poe Society, Baltimore, Maryland Poe House, Baltimore, Maryland
MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD The Killer's Wife by Bill Floyd

Sue Grafton and James Lee Burke are so gracious and witty--I enjoyed sitting in on their Symposium interviews. Each one signed a book for me. James Lee Burke admitted he had waited nine years between publication of books 2 and 3 and submitted the book 111 times. So let Suck It Up forever be the motto. We never think of published authors having these issues. The book went on to win (I believe) a Pulitzer. So take heart, ye weary writers.

I rode busses in NY and didn't worry too much about the flu because I had my tiny bottle of hand sanitizer with me.

In my next blog, I'll discuss trying to get out of a restroom without contaminating your just-washed hands. This ain't easy.

Grapeshot