And The Edgar Award Winners Are . . .

Image from http://www.brittanica.com/


At a glitzy party in a NYC hotel ballroom, some of the best and the brightest in the crime writing genre came together to honor the nominees and winners of this year's Edgars: novels, short stories, plays and television programs.


I've been trekking from Bean Town to The Big Apple for years to attend the symposium and the agents and editors parties and some years even to the pricey banquet ("come dressed to kill") , but it's always an expensive undertaking, and this year my heart wasn't in it, so I went to Muse & the Marketplace instead for about the same money.

Earlier in this blog I posted the nominees, and now the charmed (and talented) few who bask in the winner's circle.

BEST NOVEL

Down River by John Hart (St. Martin's Minotaur)


BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

In the Woods by Tana French (Penguin Group – Viking)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Queenpin by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)


BEST FACT CRIME

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
by Vincent Bugliosi (W.W. Norton and Company


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (The Penguin Press)


BEST SHORT STORY

"The Golden Gopher ' – Los Angeles Noir by Susan Straight (Akashic Books


BEST JUVENILE

The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh (Hyperion Books for Young Readers)


BEST YOUNG ADULT

Rat Life by Tedd Arnold (Penguin – Dial Books for Young Readers)


BEST PLAY

Panic by Joseph Goodrich (International Mystery Writers' Festival)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

"Pilot" – Burn Notice, Teleplay by Matt Nix (USA Network/Fox Television Studios)


BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY

Michael Clayton, Screenplay by Tony Gilroy (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Congratulations to all. I read Megan Abbot's first book and thought it was brilliant. Loved Michael Clayton, too.

Link to Galley cat photos and more news of the Edgar's event
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/awards/scene_the_edgars_prebanquet_reception_83875.asp

Grapeshot

The Muse & The Marketplace

Grapeshot as a skinny young mom who never worried about being remembered.

The Muse and the Marketplace is a sublime event for writers that took place at Boston’s famous Parker House (think rolls and Boston Cream Pie) Hotel last weekend.

As the title implies, the conference paid attention to the creative end of things (the muse) and to Mammon (the Marketplace). My particular interests in writing somewhat literary historical fiction were well-served by Jeff Talarigo’s and Sylvia Sellers-Garcia’s offerings. Randall Peffer’s audience-interactive “Drag Queens, Dead Goats, Sula and Peter Pan” helped attendees figure out some ways to craft literary mysteries.

Lisa Scottoline shared her agent’s name, some past rejection letters, and her upbeat advice. These days, upbeat advice makes me want to weep, but so it goes.

Michael Thomas quoted T.S. Eliot and James Joyce and played some cool music and the session almost transported me back to my undergraduate days.

Jonathan Franzen rocked with his keynote luncheon speech, which was a prime example of show, don’t tell. He provided me (unknowingly and inadvertently) for a quote for the opening of my new novel. He’s a funny man, and a literate man and his address did not make me want to weep. I bought a copy of The Corrections, at long last and am mid-point in the book. Wonderful writing, conflicted characters-- so enthralling to read such a fine novel.

D.Y. Bechard talked about creating “bad” characters, always a tricky thing for a writer, since all bad characters need some redeeming features, unless of course, one is deep, deep into genre.

When I am at these events, I am always reminded how invisible I have become due to no longer being a young woman. Once I had long blond hair and was skinny and wore all the trendy clothes (see photo) and I smoked like tires on fire and felt generally miserable, but I always got a lot of attention from males. Now I am one of the hordes of middle-aged women who frequent these events, and I can meet an editor 3 or 4 times and he still might not remember me. Whatchagonnado?

But The Muse, etc. rocked and I took away good information, inspiration and the urge to write. Kudos to Grub Street for a great event, and the food was extra-yummy, too, although I must be one out of one hundred who find bagels for breakfast a huge yawn. Sunday's scones were, however, delightful. One cannot live on bagels alone, although there is a place in West Stockbridge that makes you think maybe you could.

So say I.

Grapeshot

Warby's???

Warby's? Wendy's is buying Arby's or is Arby's buying Wendy's? When our kids were small, we used to go to Arby's a lot, eating the roast beef sandwiches with the yummy barbeque sauce and the delicous little potato cakes. Doesn't take much to please hungry boys.

I may have been to Wendy's once or twice, but I haven't "done" fast food since my mom died. No, I didn't take a vow not to eat it or anything, but when I visited my mother during her last years of decline in Arizona, there were mostly fast food places in the neighborhood, and once I ate at McDonald's twice in one day. Visited the colonel, too. There's a reason grease and carbs are called "comfort food." Over the years I have lost most of my taste for it. But not for fried chicken or cheese burgers, Never.

Tomorrow I'm taking the subway into town for Grub Street's The Muse and the Marketplace.
Signed up for two days of writing seminars. Not that I have been writing much. A few edits to Festival Madness which now has two rejections. I have been sending out some queries, so we'll see how it goes.

Yesterday I read an interview with Agent Nat Sobel in Poet & Writers about getting a first novel published, and the news was not good.Or pretty. Last night I had an endlessly complicated dream about snobbery and exclusion, and in the dream I told someone that I wrote "commercial fiction." Looking back on the dream, it was more of a nightmare, in a genteel sort of way.

Genteel nightmares!

Ah well, it's a nice spring day and S.O. has had a most mysterious knee relapse, trashing plans to drive to Chatham for lunch today, so I'll work in the garden instead and send off a few more queries.

Toujours,

Grapeshot