The Mystery Writers of America announced the 2020 Grand Master, Raven, and Ellery Queen recipients. MWA’s Grand Master Award, which represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing as well as for a body of work, is Barbara Neely, who's best known for her Blanche White mystery series featuring the first black female series sleuth in mainstream American publishing. The Raven Award recognizes outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing, and will be presented to the Left Coast Crime mystery conference. The Ellery Queen Award honors "outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry," and will go to Kelley Ragland, associate publisher and editorial director of Minotaur Books.
The Lindisfarne Prize for Debut Crime Fiction recognizes outstanding writing in the genre of crime or thriller fiction and is sponsored by author L J Ross in association with the Newcastle Noir Crime Writing Festival. It is open to all new writers who are from, or whose work celebrates, the north of England and who have not previously had a crime or thriller story published in any form. The winning entry will be awarded a prize of £2500 to support the completion of their work, as well as free editorial and mentoring services from a local independent publisher and funding towards a year’s membership of industry associations. Entries are open through March 31, 2020 and the winner will be announced at a ceremony forming part of the Newcastle Noir Crime Writing Festival in May 2020. (HT to Shots Magazine)
Some good news, just in time for the holidays: San Diego's Mysterious Galaxy bookstore has been saved. The store lost its lease last month and said it would have to close unless a new buyer was found, but help arrived in the form of Jenni Marchisotto and Matthew Berger, who announced not only are they buying the store, it will move to a new location in the city in January. They added that they were "ready to take Mysterious Galaxy into the next decade and beyond!" (HT to Shelf Awareness)
Writing for The Guardian, Tayari Jones profiled the unfairly neglected African-American author Ann Petry and her 1947 literary crime novel, The Street, which was marketed as a tale of vice and violence in Harlem and sold more than a million copies. (Jones had a similar article for the New York Times in 2018.) Virago Modern Classics released a new edition of The Street this week with a new introduction by Jones, author of An American Marriage and winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019.
Martin Edwards noted that regarding reissues of classic crime titles in general, it's been a pretty good year.
Country Life Magazine in the UK profiled the great country houses which inspired the tales of Britain’s greatest-ever crime writer, Dame Agatha Christie.
Janet Rudolph has posted her ever-growing list of Christmas crime fiction on her Mystery Fanfare blog, which is so extensive now, it's divided into several parts, including Authors A through E; Authors F through L; and finally, Authors M through Z. There's also a handy listing of Hanukkah mysteries, too.
Paul French, writing for Crimereads, has more thoughts on the "Crime Novels of Christmas," and a guest post by Nigel Bird on Martin Edwards' blog mused on the appeal of Christmas mysteries.
If you're looking for last-minute crime books for Christmas gifts, the latest "Best of 2019" lists may be helpful, from The Rap Sheet contributors Kevin Burton Smith, Ali Karim, Jim Napier, and J. Kingston Pierce; Crimereads; Aunt Agatha's bookstore; Murder by the Book bookstore; and Dead Good Books.
The Mystery Lovers' Kitchen has their usual tasty holiday offerings of recipes for you, including One Pot Gingerbread from Shari Randall; Caramel Almond Cookies from Maryanne Corrigan; and Cranberry Bliss Bars via Leslie Budewitz.
In a recent Page 69 test, New York Times bestselling author James Lovegrove applied the Page 69 Test to his latest Sherlock Holmes novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon.
Yellow Mama's holiday issue is out, featuring fifteen full-length and four flash fiction stories, several related to the Christmas season, including: Dini Armstrong’s "Glitter in the Dark," in which a girl and her dad spend Christmas in a Dutch detainment camp; Gary Clifton’s "Angel," a pooch-loving hooker, who tries escaping from her abusive pimp on Christmas Eve; and Hillary Lyons’ "Red Velvet, White Lies," where a scorned girlfriend has the perfect gift for her philandering beau.
King's River Life magazine has a free holiday short for you, "Two Worlds: A Christmas Story" by Paula Messina.
Manning Wolfe exlains why "short is sweet" in a brief look at the history of brief crime books, including the new imprint he's spearheading, Bullet Books Speed Reads.
The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast featured "My Christmas Story" by Steve Hockensmith. And as I noted on recent Media Murder for Monday posts, you can also hear the holiday stories, "A Christmas Trifle," a Meg Langslow story by Donna Andrews and "Crime Dog On the Road," by mystery author Neil S. Plakcy, on the Mysteryrats Maze podcast.
Charles Dickens’s stoic response to the destruction of his Christmas turkey in a train fire has been revealed in a letter rediscovered at the National Railway Museum in York, in which the author says he "bore the loss with unbroken good humour towards the Great Western Railway Company." Dickens was sent the turkey in Christmas week of 1869 by the manager of his reading tours, George Dolby, but alas the conveyance carrying the 30-pound bird subsequently caught fire. According to Dolby, Dickens was initially annoyed, but later saw it as a blessing that what was left of the bird had not been wasted, said Anne McLean, an archive volunteer at the museum (the charred remains were later offered to the people of Reading for sixpence a portion.)
Here's an idea that I think the U.S. (and all countries) should emulate: every Christmas, Iceland has the Jolabokaflod, or Christmas Book Flood, a much-loved tradition that has been celebrated in Iceland since 1945. Two-thirds of books in Iceland are published in November and December, and on Christmas Eve, Icelanders traditionally exchange books and spend the evening reading. Among their favorites are the crime novels of Arnaldur Indridason, who’s topped bestseller lists for the past two decades in his native country.
You've probably seen its literary yummy goodness on the Interwebs, and Bookriot has the surprising history of the infamous "Library Cake" that is still making the rounds.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 is "Wondering About the Real Crime" by J.H.Johns.
In the Q&A roundup, Clea Simon has "Five Questions With Art Taylor"; Alana Meike Interviews Joyce Carol Oates on editing Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery & Crime By Women Writers; and Mystery Tribune spoke with to Parnell Hall, author of the Puzzle Lady and the Stanley Hastings series.
No comments:
Post a Comment