NEW $50,000 MILITARY HISTORY BOOK PRIZE

NEW ANNUAL BOOK PRIZE AWARDS $50,000 TO TOP WORK IN MILITARY HISTORY

Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize to Reward Outstanding Writing in a Neglected Discipline

NEW YORK CITY—June 12, 2013—The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation announced today the establishment of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History, which carries an award of $50,000. The prize will be awarded annually in recognition of the best book in the field of military history published in English during the previous calendar year. The inaugural award will be made in February 2014 for a book published in 2013.

“It is our hope that the establishment of this prize will draw public attention to the field's continuing utility as an important staple of education in international politics, diplomacy, and conflict, and to assist in the restoration of military history to an important place in university curricula,” said Josiah Bunting III, president of the foundation. “If we do not learn from the conflicts of the past, we will be doomed to repeat them. For the sake of all, we cannot allow this area of scholarship and thinking to atrophy in the United States or abroad.”

The winner of the prize will be selected in January 2014 from a short list of six finalists and then announced at an event at the New-York Historical Society the following month. Publishers may submit as many appropriate titles for consideration as they wish. More information about the submission process can be found athttp://www.hfg.org/prize/main.htm.

The judging committee for the prize, below, includes some of the most respected names in the field.

·         Andrew Roberts, Ph.D., historian and journalist, Committee Chair

·         Charles F. Brower IV, Ph.D., Brigadier General, USA, Ret.; Henry King Burgwyn Professor of Military History, Virginia Military Institute

·         Josiah Bunting III, President of the HF Guggenheim Foundation; Recording Secretary to the Committee

·         Eliot A. Cohen, Ph.D., Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

·         Saul David, Ph.D., Professor of War Studies, University of Buckingham

·         Leanda de Lisle, M.A., M.B.A., historian and journalist

·         Sir Hew Strachan, Ph.D., Chichele Professor in the History of War, All Souls, Oxford University

·         H. Kirk Unruh, Jr., Rear Admiral, USNR, Ret.; Recording Secretary, Princeton University.

The prize recognizes the foundation's founder, Harry Frank Guggenheim, creator of Newsday and a distinguished naval veteran of both twentieth-century world wars. It is made possible by Lewis E. Lehrman, co-founder of the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, author, and champion of studies in American political and military history.

Win Walt Longmire mysteries by Craig Johnson!

I am delighted to be able to offer one lucky reader copies of A SERPENT’S TOOTH and the new TV tie-in edition of DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY, the second book in the series. For all the details on how to win, see below.

Fresh from Longmire, which had the best freshman season in total viewers for any A&E series, scripted or non-fiction, in the network’s history, Craig Johnson returns with his ninth Walt Longmire mystery, A SERPENT’S TOOTH ! This time Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire finds himself in the crosshairs of a brewing religious war.

It’s homecoming for the Durant Dogies football team when teenaged Cord Lynear, a Mormon ‘lost boy,’ forced off his compound for rebellious behavior, shows up in Absaroka County. Without much guidance—divine or otherwise—Sheriff Walt Longmire, his second-in-command Victoria Moretti, and his good friend Henry Standing Bear, search for the boy’s mother. They find themselves in a high plains scavenger hunt that ends at the barbed wire doorstep of an interstate polygamy group that has recently set up shop in the neighboring town of Short Drop. The group, run by Cord’s stepfather, the four-hundred pound polygamist Roy Lynear, is frighteningly well-armed and too good at keeping secrets.

Meanwhile, the Absaroka County jail is getting crowded with the arrival of Orrin Porter Rockwell, a dangerous and delusional old man who claims he was blessed in the flesh by Joseph Smith, and who has appointed himself Cord’s bodyguard.

As Walt and Vic pursue the Lynears, things heat up in both the investigation and their personal lives; butting heads with the well-armed zealots, they hear whispers of Big Oil and the CIA and find that even with Henry Standing Bear’s assistance, they may be in for more than they had bargained for.

THE LONGMIRE TV SERIES

Johnson’s series is the basis for Longmire, the hit A&E-TV original drama, which is returning for a second season on Memorial Day, May 27th at 10/9c. 

Here’s the trailer: 

http://www.aetv.com/longmire/video/season-2-28630595871

Longmire was the highest-rated scripted program in A&E’s history and stars Robert Taylor (Matrix, Vertical Limit) as Sheriff Walt Longmire, Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba, Young Guns) as Henry Standing Bear and Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, 24) as Victoria Moretti. Longmire was developed by Shephard/Robin Productions for Warner Horizon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire mystery series.  Johnson is the recipient of the Wyoming Historical Award for fiction, the Western Writers of America Spur Award for fiction, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award for fiction, the Rocky Award for best mystery novel set on the left coast, the Nouvel Observateur Prix du Roman Noir, and the Prix 813. He lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population twenty-five.

If you would like to win a copy of A SERPENT’S TOOTH and the new TV tie-in edition of DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY, the second book in the series, just send an email to contest@gmail.com, with "LONGMIRE" as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is only going to run for two weeks, so your odds of winning are pretty good - if you enter by June 18th, 2013. Good luck!

Big Library Read is Here!

Yesterday was the rollout of the Big Library Read pilot. This pilot program allows millions of patrons from more than 7,500 participating libraries to simultaneously read Michael Malone’s critically-acclaimed ‘Four Corners of the Sky’ in OverDrive Read, Kindle and EPUB formats. Big Library Read enables users from 10 different countries on five different continents to join in one of the largest global reading events ever to occur. From now until June 1^st, users will be able to log in to their digital library website and check out this wonderful tale about love, secrets and the mysterious bonds only families can form.

During this campaign, Overdrive will post discussion questions on Facebook and Twitter, so be sure to encourage your staff and patrons to follow them and Michael Malone and be a part of the dialogue. In addition, there will be a worldwide conversation using the hashtag #BigLibraryRead, so tweet your thoughts often. Next week, the book’s publisher,

 Sourcebooks, will host a live Facebook chat with author Michael Malone, enabling readers to have their questions answered in real time. More details will be coming soon.

If you would like to participate in this chat, please send questions during the week to Twitter (@OverDriveLibs) and stay tuned for more information. This program is the first of its kind, so head to your library’s digital collection to check out the title and join the #BigLibraryRead conversation!

The Palm Beach County Library System is participating, you can get your book here: FOUR CORNERS OF THE SKY

MWA Announces 2013 Edgar Winners

Congratulations to all the winners & nominees!

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce the winners of the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2012. The Edgar® Awards were presented to the winners at our 67^th Gala Banquet, May 2, 2013 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.


BEST NOVEL

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)


BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

The Expats by Chris Pavone (Crown Publishers)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books)


BEST FACT CRIME

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French (Penguin Group USA – Penguin Books)


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics by James O’Brien (Oxford University Press)


BEST SHORT STORY

"The Unremarkable Heart" – Mystery Writers of America Presents:  Vengeance by Karin Slaughter (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books)


BEST JUVENILE

The Quick Fix by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Abrams – Amulet Books)


BEST YOUNG ADULT

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Disney Publishing Worldwide - Hyperion)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

 “A Scandal in Belgravia” – Sherlock, Teleplay by Steven Moffat (BBC/Masterpiece)


ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"When They Are Done With Us" – Staten Island Noir by Patricia Smith (Akashic Books)


GRAND MASTER

Ken Follett
Margaret Maron


RAVEN AWARDS

Oline Cogdill

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, San Diego & Redondo Beach, CA


ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
                                                                                          
Akashic Books


THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, May 1, 2013)

The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge Books)




 

Win BUNKER HILL by Nathaniel Philbrick!

I am honored to be able to offer one lucky reader of a copy of Bunker Hill by National Book Award winner Nathaniel Philbrick.

BUNKER HILL: A City, A Siege, A Revolution tells the story of the battle that ignited the Revolutionary War, and—because Nathaniel Philbrick is telling it—the story has never been more interesting.

In BUNKER HILL, Philbrick finds new characters, and new facets to familiar ones. The real work of choreographing rebellion falls to a thirty-three year old physician named Joseph Warren who emerges as the on-the-ground leader of the Patriot cause and is fated to die at Bunker Hill. Others in the cast include Paul Revere, Warren’s fiancé the poet Mercy Scollay, a newly recruited George Washington, the reluctant British combatant General Thomas Gage and his more bellicose successor William Howe, who leads the three charges at Bunker Hill and presides over the claustrophobic cauldron of a city under siege as both sides play a nervy game of brinkmanship for control.

Key Events Leading Up To

BUNKER HILL: A City, A Siege, A Revolution

by Nathaniel Philbrick

In his new book, Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the battle that transformed a revolution into a full-fledged war.  Philbrick focuses his narrative on the little known Dr. Joseph Warren, the charismatic physician who was at the forefront of the revolution in Massachusetts during the spring of 1775 and was fated to die at Bunker Hill. What follows is an account of the events leading up to that historic battle in June 17, 1775. 

April 2:  With tensions rising, patriot families begin to evacuate Boston.

April 13:  Massachusetts Provincial Congress directs the Committee of Safety to create six companies of artillery.

April 17:  Thomas Gage prepares his plan to send Col. Francis Smith and 700 troops to destroy rebel military stores in Concord.

April 18:  at 10 pm, British grenadiers and light infantry assemble at Boston Common for transportation to Cambridge; learning of the plan, Joseph Warren orders William Dawes and Paul Revere to alarm the countryside that the soldiers are headed to Concord. 

April 19:  British regulars fire on militiamen at Lexington Green, killing eight and wounding ten; later in the day, men die on both sides during a clash at Concord’s North Bridge.

April 20:  Thousands of patriot militiamen from towns throughout Massachusetts flood into Cambridge and Roxbury. 

April 23:  Admiral Graves begins building a gun battery on Copp’s Hill in Boston’s North End; the Provincial Congress reconvenes at Watertown and elects Joseph Warren as President.

May 22:  The Provincial Congress passes a resolve that all persons who remain faithful to the king “are guilty of such atrocious and unnatural crimes against their country, that every friend to mankind ought to forsake and detest them.”

May 27:  General Israel Putnam captures and burns the British schooner Diana in the Battle of Chelsea Creek.

June 14:  Joseph Warren is appointed a major general in the provincial army.

June 16:  At 6 p.m. Colonel William Prescott and 1,000 soldiers assemble in Cambridge with instructions to build a redoubt on Bunker Hill; for reasons that remain unclear to this day, they build the fortification on Breed’s Hill instead.

June 17:  Joseph Warren is killed during the final stages of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which proves to be the bloodiest engagement of the Revolution.

If you would like to win a copy of BUNKER HILL, just send an email to contest@gmail.com, with " BUNKER HILL" as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is going to run for less than two weeks, so your odds of winning are pretty good - if you enter by April 22, 2013. Good luck!

Guest Blogger: LISA BLACK

I must be a frustrated architect. If you’ve read my past books you may have noticed how often a building figures into the plot—in Takeover it was the gleaming but secretive Federal Reserve with its marble and gilt. In Trail of Blood it was the crumbling but ominous structure with its hidden rooms and upcoming date with the wrecking ball, and also the trains, the churning steel behemoths that chugged along their tracks at its base. In Defensive Wounds, of course, it was the landmark Terminal Tower with its old-money flavor and its dizzyingly high observation deck. I like large buildings, vast hallways carved from stone, arches and curlicues and history. This is probably why, after a high school trip to Washington DC, I got a bachelor’s degree in political science despite having no aptitude or talent for politics. Turns out I didn’t like politics. I just liked the buildings.

In Blunt Impact my tendencies are at it again. Theresa is caught in the controversy of a new county jail—a sweeping skyscraper still under construction. OSHA whistleblowers and missing money, criminal elements using the site for their own purposes and a homely but smart district attorney who becomes more interested in Theresa than the intrigue surround the forensic scientist and her new friend, a tough but endangered little girl named Anna—better known as Ghost.

            Ghost has a unique lifestyle, loved by her construction worker mother and disabled grandmother but constantly slipping out of her home to roam the back alleys of the large city, looking for the father whose identity has always been kept secret from her. Nothing all that bad ever happens—until she witnesses her mother’s murder, the beautiful young woman thrown from the 23^rd floor. Ghost will not rest until she learns the truth, which means that Theresa cannot rest until Ghost is safe.

            I learned during the writing, as I always do. I learned about concrete, expensive and specific, and funding and the difference between a beam and a column (the first is horizontal, the second vertical). But what I really wanted to learn about was the pervasiveness (or not) of corruption within the construction trades. Do you think I could find one single book written about the Big Dig or any other construction project that wound up costing much more than expected? I could not.

            The setting, of course, gives me the opportunity to mess with the acrophobic in all of us. But truly it’s the openness that intrigues me, the image of the wind rushing by as my characters get an unobstructed view of the city from their aerie, with that accompanying sense of danger and freedom and excitement so rarely obtained in our safe, careful lives.

And isn’t that, after all, what books are all about?

Blunt Impact, available April 1, featuring forensic scientist Theresa MacLean and a series of murders surrounding a skyscraper under construction in downtown Cleveland. The first to die is young, sexy concrete worker Samantha, thrown from the 23^rd floor. The only witness is her 11 year old daughter Anna, nicknamed Ghost. Ghost will stop at nothing to find her mother’s killer, and Theresa will stop at nothing to keep Ghost safe.

Also, Kindle owners can find a bargain in my new book The Prague Project, written under the name Beth Cheylan. A death in West Virginia sends FBI agent Ellie Gardner and NYPD Counterterrorism lieutenant Michael Stewart on a chase across Europe as they track stolen nukes and lost Nazi gold, hoping to avert the death of millions of people.

Interview with Maureen Johnson by Becky Lejeune

I am delighted to share Becky Lejeune's interview with Maureen Johnson from her recent Tattered Cover event in Denver. This was the final stop on her MADNESS UNDERNEATH tour. MADNESS is the second installment in her Shades of London series. 

BL: You are very active on Twitter, so describe the Shades of London series in a tweet:

MJ: Madness Underneath is oh, no some ghosts!

BL: Shades of London is a bit different from your other books, what inspired the series?

MJ: I wanted to write a mystery. I’m a huge mystery reader... I read two mysteries a day as a kid and I was thinking, “I really want to write a mystery. That’s actually what I love.”

I was doing research in England for The Last Little Blue Envelope and I just started to think “I really want to set something here properly. Properly in London, properly kind of out of the city.” I was on a historical tour and they were telling all of these ghost stories and I was really… disappointed in the quality of the ghost stories. I thought they were lame and I wanted to tell a better one – and make it a mystery as well.

I sort of had it in my head that I was going to do a mystery and then started looking for the right mystery to hang it on.

BL: You’ve said there are to be four books in the series as a whole. So far in we’ve got Jack the Ripper and Bedlam, what other dark historical influences can we expect?

MJ: There’s a lot of stuff underneath the ground. That’s all I’m going to say. The next book is called The Shadow Cabinet but if I say anymore I run the risk of spoilers.

BL: Do you know now how the series is going to end, or is it sort of book by book?

MJ: I absolutely know. The ending is set: book three is all mapped out and book four, I know exactly what that’s about.

BL: You’ve also got a collaborative project coming up based on Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series, how did that come to be?

MJ: I’m doing a collaborative project with Cassie Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan, called The Bane Chronicles. We came up with the idea because we hang out a lot together - we work together, we’re friends.

Sarah is the funniest person in the world. Sarah reads more than anyone I’ve ever met. I mean, I’ve met some people that read a lot but nobody reads as fast as Sarah. One time, she was staying at my house - I went to bed at 11 - and by the time we got up in the morning she had read two books overnight! It’s no joke. And she can summarize books in the funniest way possible – she isolates what’s kind of great and funny.

She did all these funny summaries of Cassie’s books and things she wanted to have happen in them, ‘cause she has an evil imagination. She loves to break readers’ hearts, that’s her favorite thing. I love Simon from Cassie’s books and we had been sort of joking around and speculating on things that we would do if we were in charge. It was through those conversations that we realized we could actually take Magnus, who has this whole past that has never been explored - he’s been alive for many hundreds of years – and let the two of us loose on it.

That was the idea. It was just out of a bunch of joking conversations that we were like, “You know what, we could actually do this. It would be really fun.”

BL: When did you decide you wanted to be an author and how did you get started?

MJ: When I was really little. I mean it’s just sort of always what I did – I was a very kind of indoor kid. I was writing from the time I was little. I didn’t always know exactly how it was going to work out but I was pretty confident – I was weirdly confident that it would be all ok.

BL: What does your typical writing day look like?

MJ: I don’t have one. I don’t have a typical writing day. It depends on what I’m doing, like right now I’m on tour so that’s very much a tour activity and sometimes it’s very much a travel activity… but it really depends.

When I am really writing hardcore, I try to keep hours very normal. I try to start in the morning and cut off at a certain point in the evening. I don’t like to work into the night - I used to and then I kind of felt fried ‘cause you work all the time. You actually come at it fresher if you keep the hours kind of straightforward.

BL: Are you a plotter or a pantser?

MJ: I have been both and I do both. I don’t have a set method. I’m not one of those people that’s like, “I have a routine, I have to start a fire, I have a special pen and my special hat.” It varies with me.

BL: Since you are so active on Twitter, how do you balance work time and Twitter?

Twitter is easy for me to do, it’s very automatic to me and I can Tweet something in seconds. In many ways it’s like the comment I would make to someone if there were more people sitting there… Twitter has filled in the gap for the imaginary people I think are around me at all times and so this has really just fed into a delusion of mine. Psychologically it is both wonderful and - a professional might say - it’s probably bad, but I think it’s great.

BL: Is there anything you’ve learned along the way that you wish you’d known when you started out as an author?

MJ: Yeah. Things I wish I’d known when I was starting out: not to worry so much, to sort of know that you’ll never feel quite done with the book. Not to really stress out. Sometimes you have to write and the more time you spend worrying is sort of wasted time. You can’t really fail. A lot of times you think, “But this time I’ve failed. This time it kills me – this book will literally kill me!” A book has never killed anybody yet. 

BL:  What question do you wish people would ask at events?

MJ: Um, would you like to hold all of these kittens that I brought? That is the question I would like to be asked. And I eagerly await that because I would like to hold a lot of kittens! I think that may seem like a facetious or a simple statement but in fact that is mostly why I go places, to be around dogs and cats. I’m staying here with Kate, my agent, and she has two dogs… I couldn’t stop thinking for days about how, oh, the doggies will sleep with me! I’m basically a five year old.

BL: Of all of your characters, who’s your favorite?

MJ: You know, I don’t want to choose favorites. But having said that, I really love the Martin family, which is a group of four characters in Suite Scarlet, Scarlet Fever, and the upcoming third Scarlet book. I love them – they maybe are my favorite. That’s sort of my happy place, when I’m writing about them.

BL:  What advice do you have for people who want to write?

MJ: [My] advice to people who want to write is really just to keep going. A lot of times – pretty much always – you’ll work on something and think, “I can’t do this. This is too hard. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m lost. This is terrible. I’m the worst.” Fill in the blank. You will think you are the worst. If you don’t, you may be fine but you may have a serious ego problem, but in general most people feel at some point like they have failed. Or that it’s too hard. Or that it can’t be done... If you feel that way, it’s normal. Just keep going. Really, just keep going through that. The only way a book doesn’t get done is if you don’t finish it, but there’s never been a book that couldn’t be finished, I think. You will feel that way, just keep going.

7th ANNUAL FLORIDA BOOK AWARDS

7th ANNUAL FLORIDA BOOK AWARDS ANNOUNCE BEST OF 2012

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— Its seventh annual competitions now complete, Florida Book Awards announces winners for books published in 2012 in eight categories of competition.  According to Co-Director Lisa Tendrich Frank, “In its seven years, the program has honored many of the Sunshine State’s best authors.  It is already the nation’s most comprehensive statewide program, and the program promises to bring more distinction to our talent-rich state.”

FBA 2012 Winners by Category

Popular Fiction
Gold: DJ Niko, The Tenth Saint (Medallion Press)
Silver: Michael Lister, Blood Sacrifice (Pulpwood Press)
Bronze: Mary Anna Evans, Plunder (Poisoned Pen Press)

General Fiction
Gold: Dennis Lehane, Live by Night (HarperCollins)
Silver: Janis Owens, American Ghost (Scribner)
Bronze: Mary Anna Evans, Plunder (Poisoned Pen Press)

Florida NonFiction
Gold: Gilbert King, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (HarperCollins)
Silver: Craig Pittman, The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal, and the World's Most Beautiful Orchid (University Press of Florida)
Bronze: Larry Eugene Rivers, Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in 19th Century Florida (University of Illinois Press)

General NonFiction
Gold: Michael Grunwald, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (Simon and Schuster)
Silver: William A. Link, Links: My Family in American History (University Press of Florida)
Bronze: Tracy Crow, Eyes Right: Confessions from a Woman Marine (University of Nebraska Press)

Poetry
Gold: Campbell McGrath, In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (HarperCollins)
Silver: Terri Witek, Exit Island (Orchises Press)
Bronze: Lola Haskins, Grace to Leave (Anhinga Press)

Visual Arts
Gold: Lu Vickers and Bonnie Georgiadis, Weeki Wachee Mermaids (University Press of Florida)

Silver: Robert L. Crawford and William R. Brueckheimer, The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantation (University Press of Florida)
Bronze:  Gary Libby, Reflections II:  Watercolors of Florida 1835-2000 (Museum of Arts and Science)

Young Adult
Gold: Laura Lascarso, Counting Backwards (Simon and Schuster)
Silver: Carl Hiaasen, Chomp (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Bronze: Alex Flinn, Bewitching (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

Children’s Literature

Gold: Henry Cole, Unspoken (Scholastic)
Silver: Adrian Fogelin, Summer on the Moon (Peachtree Publishers)
Bronze: Dianne Ochiltree, Molly, by Golly (Boyds Mills Press)


The Florida Book Awards --the nation's most comprehensive state book awards program-- was established in 2006 to recognize, honor, and celebrate the best Florida literature published the previous year.  It is coordinated by The Florida State University Libraries, and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, State Library and Archives of Florida, Florida Historical Society, Florida Humanities Council, Florida Literary Arts Coalition, Florida Library Association, “Just Read, Florida!,” Florida Family Literacy Initiative, Florida Association for Media in Education, Florida Center for the Literary Arts, the Friends of FSU Libraries, Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, and the Florida Writers Association.

Submissions were read by juries of three members each nominated from across the state by cosponsoring organizations.  Jurors are authorized to select up to three medalists (including one Gold Winner, one Silver Runner-up, and one Bronze Medalist) in each of the eight categories; jurors are also authorized to make no selections in a given year.

The eight Gold Medal Winners will  be recognized on March 20th at the Historical and Cultural Awards Ceremony sponsored by the State of Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs. All award recipients will be recognized at the a banquet held at Mission San Luis March 19 in Tallahassee.

To learn more about Florida Book Awards, visit:http://fsu.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7473c8fdc1b20c5209df1d8f0&id=28f6a47704&e=7dd856214b orhttp://fsu.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7473c8fdc1b20c5209df1d8f0&id=f4a8d93193&e=7dd856214b

Edgar Awards

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce as we celebrate the 204th anniversary of the birth 

of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery 

fiction, non-fiction and television, published or produced in 2012. The Edgar® Awards will be 

presented to the winners at our 67th Gala Banquet, May 2, 2013 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York 

City. 

BEST NOVEL

The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

Gone Girl: A Novel by Gillian Flynn (Crown Publishers) 

Potboiler by Jesse Kellerman (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

Sunset by Al Lamanda (Gale Cengage Learning – Five Star) 

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow) 

All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley (Penguin Group USA – Riverhead Books) 

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay (Random House Publishing– Ballantine) 

Don’t Ever Get Old by Daniel Friedman (Minotaur Books - Thomas Dunne Books) 

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal (Random House Publishing– Bantam Books) 

The Expats by Chris Pavone (Crown Publishers) 

The 500 by Matthew Quirk (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Reagan Arthur) 

Black Fridays by Michael Sears (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL   

Complication by Isaac Adamson (Soft Skull Press) 

Whiplash River by Lou Berney (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks) 

Bloodland by Alan Glynn (Picador) 

Blessed are the Dead by Malla Nunn (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books - Emily Bestler Books) 

The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books) 

BEST FACT CRIME

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted  

the Last Days of Old China by Paul French (Penguin Group USA – Penguin Books) 

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America  

by Gilbert King (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper) 

More Forensics and Fiction: Crime Writers’ Morbidly Curious Questions Expertly Answered

by D.P. Lyle, MD (Medallion Press) 

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre (Crown Publishers) 

The People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from  

the Streets of Tokyo – and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up  

by Richard Lloyd Parry (Farrar Straus & Giroux Originals) 

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL 

Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: The Hard-Boiled Detective Transformed  

by John Paul Athanasourelis (McFarland and Company) 

Books to Die For: The World's Greatest Mystery Writers on the World's Greatest  

Mystery Novels edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke  

(Simon & Schuster – Atria Books – Emily Bestler Books) 

The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics  

by James O’Brien (Oxford University Press) 

In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the  

Creation of an American Hero edited by Otto Penzler (Smart Pop)

BEST SHORT STORY

"Iphigenia in Aulis" – An Apple for the Creature by Mike Carey (Penguin Group USA – Ace Books) 

"Hot Sugar Blues" – Mystery Writers of America Presents: Vengeance  

by Steve Liskow (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books) 

"The Void it Often Brings With It” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine  

by Tom Piccirilli (Dell Magazines) 

"The Unremarkable Heart" – Mystery Writers of America Presents:  Vengeance  

by Karin Slaughter (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books) 

"Still Life No. 41" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Teresa Solana  

(Dell Magazines) 

BEST JUVENILE

Fake Mustache: Or, How Jodie O’Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved 

the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind  

by Tom Angleberger (Abrams – Amulet Books) 

13 Hangmen by Art Corriveau (Abrams – Amulet Books) 

The Quick Fix by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Abrams – Amulet Books) 

Spy School by Stuart Gibbs (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) 

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage  

(Penguin Young Readers Group – Dial Books for Young Readers) 

BEST YOUNG ADULT 

 Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak  

(Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group – Roaring Brook Press) 

The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George (Penguin Young Readers Group – Viking) 

Crusher by Niall Leonard (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte BFYR) 

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield  

(Penguin Young Readers Group – Dutton Children’s Books) 

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Disney Publishing Worldwide - Hyperion) 

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“Pilot” – Longmire, Teleplay by Hunt Baldwin & John Coveny (A&E/Warner Horizon Television) 

“Child Predator” – elemeNtarY, Teleplay by Peter Blake (CBS Productions) 

“Slaughterhouse” – Justified, Teleplay by Fred Golan (Sony Pictures Television/FX Productions) 

 “A Scandal in Belgravia” – Sherlock, Teleplay by Steven Moffat (BBC/Masterpiece) 

“New Car Smell” – Homeland, Teleplay by Meredith Stiehm (Showtime/Fox21) 

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD  

"When They Are Done With Us" – Staten Island Noir  

by Patricia Smith (Akashic Books) 

GRAND MASTER

Ken Follett 

Margaret Maron 

RAVEN AWARDS

Oline Cogdill 

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, San Diego & Redondo Beach, CA 

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD    

Akashic Books 

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD 

(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, May 1, 2013) 

Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books) 

A City of Broken Glass by Rebecca Cantrell (Forge Books) 

The Reckoning by Jane Casey (Minotaur Books) 

The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge Books) 

Sleepwalker by Wendy Corsi Staub (HarperCollins Publishers - Harper) 

Fill Your New Tablet!

HarperCollins' post-holiday campaign, "Fill Your New Tablet" was created so all consumers can enjoy great HarperCollins e-books at a discount.Running through January 7 and including e-books that are up to 75% off, the campaign boasts 2012 bestsellers such as Michael Chabon’sTelegraph Avenue, James Rollins’ Bloodline, Dennis Lehane’s Live by Night, Daniel Silva’s Fallen Angel and Kim Harrison’s Into the Woods.

This link will go live on Christmas Day!
http://ow.ly/g6NcL 

Win a copy of FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM

I am delighted to offer one lucky reader a copy of the newly released FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM updated by Phillip Pullman. I am just enamored of this beautiful new edition.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Grimm's fairy tales. To celebrate, Viking is thrilled to publish FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM, a retelling of fifty beloved stories by Philip Pullman, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy.

In 1812, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first volume of Children's and Household Tales. Now, two centuries later, fairy tales are once again all the rage with TV shows like Grimm and Once Upon a Time dominating ratings and two movie adaptations of "Snow White" out in the same year.  With FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM, Philip Pullman brings these much-loved tales back to the page.  

From stories like "Cinderella" and "Hansel and Gretel" to lesser-known treasures like "The Girl With No Hands," "The Three Snake Leaves," and "Godfather Death," Pullman retells fifty of Grimm's timeless classics for the modern age in his lively, beguiling prose. He includes all the most familiar characters-Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, the Frog Prince, and Rapunzel-while also introducing readers to some they might not have met yet. 

Pullman has consulted a variety of editions of the work to pull together a seamless version of each story that focuses on engaging readers and demonstrating exactly why these fairy tales have been told over and over again, remaining vibrant since their original publication in the early 19th century. With FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM, Pullman pays homage to the tales of romance and villainy that inspired his unique creative vision-and that continue to cast their spell on the Western imagination.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) has sold more than fifteen million copies and been published in more than forty countries.  The first volume, The Golden Compass, was made into a major motion picture starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.  Pullman is at work on a companion His Dark Materials novel The Book of Dust.  He lives in Oxford , England .

PRAISE

"A fresh, sparkling collection of the finest stories from the Brothers Grimm, hand-picked by an author perfectly suited to the task. This volume is a must-have for any lover of fairy tales...
In the hands of a master storyteller such as Pullman , the Grimms's tales take on a whole new life."
-Library Journal (starred review)

"A wonderfully rich reading experience...not only stylish in its simplicity but also scholarly.  There are, of course, any number of English-language version and editions of Grimm, but few are as felicitous in their telling at Pullman's.  His book surely belongs on the same shelf as the very best of those that appeal to general readers of all ages."
-Booklist (starred review)

"Smooth narration makes every tale accessible while keeping the mystical and lyrical qualities that make fairy tales so beloved...Readers will enjoy not only returning to European fantasy's roots but seeing how the tree still blooms."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"You didn't know you needed to reread Grimm. You do. This is a grand and a great book. With confidence and modesty alike, Pullman adds just enough Pullman to remind us that the oldest stories are always best told by someone who knows how to do the job of storytelling. No grandstanding here, no posturing or poesy-making. Pullman selects familiars and exotics, and gives us the goods anew-the ashes never grittier, the golden shoes never more lively, and the teller's notes concise, witty, scholarly even. Older Grimms-put them on the top of the bookcase. This one needs to be closer to hand. I read it ravenously, rapturously."
-GREGORY MAGUIRE, author of Wicked 

"I could not imagine a better emissary for the Brothers Grimm than Philip Pullman. His translations have the timeless quality of a voice speaking in a quiet room, ancient and immediate to the senses. What a pleasure it is to be reacquainted with these stories in all their swiftness, wonder, horror and charm."
-Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead

"Philip Pullman's Grimm is quite eloquent, and his commentary is witty and historically accurate. There is no doubt in my mind that the Grimms would have been delighted with what he has accomplished."
-Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota

"In this pitch-perfect retelling of the Grimms' fairy tales, Philip Pullman reminds us that the stories have lost none of their relevance or racing energy, even two hundred years after they were written down. As storyteller and sage, he preserves the flavors and aromas of fine old wines from times past and delivers them to us in sparkling new bottles."
-Maria Tatar, Harvard University ; author of The Classic Fairy Tales

"I've admired Philip Pullman since his early fantasy Galatea on through his splendid trilogy, His Dark Materials. All of his gifts, including his prose eloquence and his endless high-Romantic imagination, are manifested in this marvelous retelling of Grimm."
-Harold Bloom

To win your own copy:

Send an email to contest@gmail.com, with “Brothers Grimm” as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is open to all adults over 18 years of age. One entry per email address, please. Your email will not be shared or sold to anyone. 

All entries, including names, email addresses and mailing addresses, will be purged after winner is notified. This contest ends November 8, 2012. Good luck!

Guest Blogger: WENDY WAX

In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I am honored to have Wendy Wax be my guest blogger today.

Top 10 Reasons to Spend Time at TEN BEACH ROAD in October

By Wendy Wax

TEN BEACH ROAD is hitting the shelves anew this month as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Penguin Group’s READ PINK® program.

The READ PINK® program was created by my publisher, Penguin Group (USA) to promote public awareness of breast cancer and breast cancer research and to support and recognize the contributions of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation®(BCRF) by connecting the cause to books written by, for and about women.

For the past two years, Penguin's Read Pink donation has sponsored 500 hours of research time and I’m incredibly proud and honored to have my book on the shelves with the Read Pink Seal on the cover and information about BCRF in the back of the book.

But… it’s October!  My books usually hit the stores when temperatures are rising, school is out and we’re either headed to the beach or at least daydreaming about sand, surf and sun.  So this got me thinking about what makes a book a beach book, and why we should throw caution to the wind and read them all year long.   After all, if some fashionista somewhere can decree that white pants are acceptable all year long, then why can’t we do the same with beach books?

Not convinced?  Well, let me share my “Top 10 Reasons to Spend Time at TEN BEACH ROAD in October” list with you and see if we can get on the same page.  (Pun fully intended!) 

1. Since school is back in session, it’s important to set a good example for your kids by reading.  If you pick up TEN BEACH ROAD, you’ll be enjoying a sweat-soaked summer with Maddie, Nicole, and Avery as they rehab a dilapidated beachfront mansion in Pass-a-Grille, Florida.  Your kids will just think you are very smart and studious.

2. If you need something to warm you up, the men of TEN BEACH ROAD are hot.

3. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why books that really take you away are necessary in the summer.  What better time for a good mental escape to the beach than a cold, rainy day in October?

4. When you’re looking ahead to long cold months with the sun setting earlier and earlier each day, you can at least feel good that you have not lost everything in a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme like the women of TEN BEACH ROAD.

5. If your neighborhood is getting too cold and windy for DIY projects, you can read about Maddie, Nicole and Avery’s work on Bella Flora and just tell your hubby that you’re in the “planning stages” for next spring and summer.

6. Did I mention that there are some hot guys in TEN BEACH ROAD?

7. Reading beach books in the summer can make you feel bad about not being quite bikini ready… but in October, you can pull out a big cozy sweater and some chocolate cake and know you have months before you have to worry about that again!

8. If beach vacations are not just for summer, then beach books shouldn’t be either.  October is actually a good time to head to the beaches in Florida.  The crowds have thinned and the temperatures are still warm.  You could leave the kids with Dad, grab your girlfriends, a few copies of TEN BEACH ROAD and call it a book club weekend! 

9. Friendships are timeless, and so are troubles.  TEN BEACH ROAD is the story of three women who are thrown together when they lose everything.  It could be set in Aspen in March, Boston in December or Dubuque in May.  The story is about the women, their lives, and their bond.  So reading it in October wherever you live will work.  I promise. 

10. I think I have mentioned that there are some hot guys in the book, but it bears repeating!  If you’re looking for a way to warm up, there’s nothing better than picturing Joe Giraldi running shirtless on the beach.  (Not sure who Joe is?  Pick up the READ PINK® edition of TEN BEACH ROAD to find out)!

So, show the world the kind of woman you really are: brave, fearless, and bold.  Wear white pants after Labor Day, drink a Piña Colada in December and proudly show off your copy of TEN BEACH ROAD in October.  You’ll be the envy of the neighborhood, and you can be proud knowing you’re supporting a great cause!

Guest Blogger: THOMAS ENGER

PIERCED

By Thomas Enger

A body lies in front of him.

The back of the bloodstained leather jacket has been slashed repeatedly. Above the collar the skull shines brightly through the shaven and tattooed scalp. He recognizes the tattoo immediately.

Only Jocke Brolenius has ‘Go to hell’ tattooed on the back of his neck.

His mobile goes dark. His eyes dart around and he pricks up his ears, but he hears nothing in the profound silence.

Someone has set him up.

Internationally bestselling author Thomas Enger returns with another pulse-pounding thriller, (Atria Books; $15.00, October 2nd, 2012). A follow up to the gripping masterpiece, BURNED, Enger once again takes readers into the terrifying world of investigative crime reporter Henning Juul, a man who is desperate to determine the truth about his son’s killer while struggling to fight his inner demons.

 “If you find out who set me up, I’ll tell you what happened the day your son died.” This is the message Henning Juul— back at work after being terribly burned and scarred for life in a fire that killed his son—receives from incarcerated former extortionist, Tore Pulli. Pulli is convicted for a murder he claims he didn't commit, and he knows Henning will want to find the real killer if it leads to information about his son’s death.

When Pulli ends up dead in prison—under mysterious circumstances—Juul decides to dig deeper. He knows the murders Pulli was convicted of do not bear his signature, and Juul is convinced that Pulli would never take his own life. Juul strikes up a fragile partnership with Iver Gundersen, a colleague now living with Juul’s ex-wife. They believe that Pulli’s death is part of an internal power struggle in a gang world where the desire for serious money is destroying the traditional, honor-based hierarchy. To parse out the truth, Juul must dive deep into an impenetrable world surrounded by a haze of myth.

Uncovering more questions than answers, Henning soon realizes that he has to find not one but several killers...killers who have never been more dangerous than they are now.

Intense and absorbing, will take readers on a spine-tingling journey through the seedy Norwegian crime world and behind the scenes of the lives that are caught in the whirlwind of an international crime ring, leaving them shocked and breathless, eager for the third book in the Henning Juul series.

Henning Juul - a Dexter in disguise?

a blog by Thomas Enger

A lot of people have asked me during the last four years: "How did you go about creating Henning Juul as a character?" "And how is it even possible to know that you are going to write six novels?"

Let me tell you how it all began. In the space of almost 15 years I made four attempts at writing a novel. None of them were published. Number three and four came quite close to making it, but it wasn't to be. So when the idea for this new character (Henning Juul) came to me, I sat down and asked myself: are you good enough to pursue a career as an author? Maybe you should try something different this time?

So I started thinking about TV. Maybe that format would suit me better. And I wanted to do something that hadn't been done before on television. I wanted the series to say something about our society in a satirical kind of way, and at the same time be as suspenseful as it could possibly be.

So I thought of Henning Juul as the journalistic equivalent to Dexter, a man running around killing people that somehow deserved it. And because he killed people, he needed a motivation, and that's where Henning's son came in. What if Henning was trying to find his son's killer? What if he justified his actions that way?

I remember writing scenes like Henning walking down the streets of Oslo, and then there would be this guy in the background painting a picture with his penis and people standing by applauding while drinking huge amounts of red wine. I wrote a scene where a man was talking to someone on the banks of Akerselva, the river that runs through parts of Oslo, with a lot of dead sea gulls floating by at the same time with no one seeming to care. Old people trying to sell drugs to the police in the open. Taxi drivers offloading their cars after they had only gone about 2000 miles. Things like that.

And I wrote all these different stories, what kind of people Henning should kill in each episode, and why. And of course, how that all should lead to Henning finding his son's killer. At one point I thought it was going to be 12 episodes. Then I got down to eight. It even went as far as me meeting with the head of development at NRK - Norway's biggest producer of TV series. The guy told me he loved the idea, and he wanted me to write a pitch that - if it was good enough - could result in me getting some working money.

At that point I was unemployed, and I needed an income quite quickly. And then, all of a sudden, the man I had met with decided to quit, and he handed me over to this other guy that was involved in a production somewhere up north in Norway. And he was just impossible to get in touch with.

So there I was, with an idea for a TV series but with no real prospects of getting somewhere with it. So I said to myself: hey, you're really on to something here. Why don't you go back to your original goal when you started writing? Why don't you see if you can write this universe as a novel series instead?

But because I had made four unsuccessful attempts, I decided to try to figure out what I previously had done wrong. I quickly realised that I had written stories set in cities I had never been to. I had written about people and environments I knew nothing or very little about. And I hadn't mapped anything out before I started writing.

But I had a great plan for Henning Juul. And I had made him a journalist, like I once had been myself. He lived in Oslo, like I did. And because the novel format is largely different from a TV series, I decided to lose all the satire and concentrate on the main issue at hand: Henning Juul finding his son's killer. And once that was in place, it was just a matter of mapping out the stories in a slightly different manner. When I was finished with that I realised I had material for six novels.

I still hadn't found any work, so I decided to make contact with two publishers in Oslo, and the very next day I was invited to a meeting with Gyldendal. They told me they loved the idea, and they wanted me to start writing. So that's what I did. Six weeks later I presented them with the first 120 pages of what was later to become Burned, volume one in the Henning Juul series, and based on those 120 pages Gyldendal told me they wanted to publish it.

I guess you can imagine what that felt like. I was unemployed, had no income, I had been trying for so long to make it as an author. All of a sudden I had. And not only that; as of now Burned has been sold to 21 countries, including England, Japan and the US.

And guess what? A production company in Norway (not NRK, but they wanted to as well) has purchased the right to make a movie out of ALL my Henning Juul novels. In due time they hope it will become a TV series as well.

Funny how life works out sometimes, right?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thomas Enger is the internationally bestselling author of Burned. A former journalist and a music composer, he lives in Oslo, Nowray.