TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

A JURY OF HER PEERS

I never thought anything could compare to the high you get when your first child is born. So it rather shocked me when – Alex and Natalie stop reading now – I experienced something akin to that high again last Thursday night at the Arthur Ellis short list event in Toronto. Yes, I had actually made the short list! And dang, wasn’t that a kick.

But also alarming. I raced home to dig out my ‘bucket list’ written 23 years ago, written in 1989 when I won my first writing award (Canadian Living Magazine). Damn straight, I’ve been kicking around a long time, decades longer than most of my colleagues realize.

This list of What-I-must-accomplish-before-I-die also included such items as “Learn to dance Flamenco,” and “Fly a plane.” Flamenco got a tick in 1996 (damn hard on your feet) and so did plane (except I ran out of money during the whole pilot training thingy and had to metaphorically bail). That list also included a few other items, one of which was x-rated (I invite people to comment by guessing what THAT was. If you’ve read Rowena Through the Wall, you may come close.)

One by one, I had crossed all these items off my list. Except one.

Back in my home office with the lovely arched window and the rickety desk, I opened the old claret journal (paper journal, of course – no smart-phones back then.) There it was, page marked with a post-it tab: “Bucket list.” And the only remaining uncrossed item: “Be a finalist for a major writing award.”

Not the winner, you note. Nope – my goal back then was to be in good company. And dammit, Thursday night put me in the best.

I’ve won six awards for fiction before. This year I was a finalist for the Derringer. But in no way did that begin to reach the thrill of being shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award for short stories, at our Crime Writers of Canada event, with so many of my author friends in attendance and cheering me on.

Bless them. Writers are the best people in the world. They are the smartest people I know, always using their minds. And they have big hearts. They know the true joy that comes from being assessed by a jury of your peers, and found worthy.

For on Thursday night last week, I discovered that “A Jury of Her Peers” is the highest court. The title of that celebrated short story by Susan Glaspell rings in head and heart. And I am supremely grateful.


Melodie Campbell is the author of over 40 short stories and 100 comedy credits. Her third novel, The Goddaughter (Orca Books) will be released Sept. 1.
www.melodiecampbell.com

TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

Another week, another award show. Cheryl Freedman’s January 13th Mystery Maven post raises some good points about book awards. Today, I add my two cents to the pot.

We have turned into a winner-take-all kind of society. This cultural phenomenon may have started with the Academy Awards but it found fertile ground on Survivor Island and American Idol before spiraling downward into gems such as the Bachelor and Tots and Tiaras. We’ve become fascinated by voting people out of competitions and watching their dreams implode in front of millions of people. Some of the shows are just plain silly, but the nastiness behind some can take your breath away.

So far, writing competitions have kept to the higher ground, but one must ask, can a panel of peers really choose the best book for a given year? Is it fair to even try?

There are a lot of positives to book competitions. Even to be shortlisted can help get an author's name out there and can lead to greater sales. Librarians use the lists to order books. Readers use the lists to try new authors. Contests create buzz – it seems that the best form of publicity is to win a major award. In their purest of intentions, book awards are not meant to denigrate those who lose, but to elevate good writing and to give exposure.

However, not all terrific books ever make it to a shortlist – and this to me, is the unfortunate, irrefutable drawback. Not making the list can shift public perception about a book's quality, and perception is a powerful marketing tool, whether deserved or not. The inescapable element of the judges’ subjectivity and personal bias in forming the order of finish can be downplayed but it can never be eliminated. What one considers a great book might be what someone else can't even get through.

And yet, we all love a good contest.

I have a curious fascination with the psychology that drives us to compete – the need to test ourselves against all others and to risk defeat. Reality shows make a spectacle of this innate drive, putting losers' agony on display for public entertainment. On the positive side, this is not the case with book contests. Just like the writing process, the shortlist selection is done out of view, and while the winner is usually announced during a public event, the work of all the finalists is celebrated.

In the final analysis, awards can be a lovely byproduct for the care and toil an author puts into their writing – but these fleeting moments of public recognition should not be the reason to write just as 'not winning' should ever be a reason to stop. It is important not to give excessive credence to an award's intrinsic value. Tiaras and trophies come and go. Award-winners are celebrated and the world moves on. The real reward rests in the solitary writing process before judgment or comparison. The true prize comes when someone picks up an author's creation and settles in for an evening's read, turns an image over in their mind or stays up past their bedtime because they just couldn't put the book down.



Brenda Chapman is the Ottawa author of the Jennifer Bannon mystery series for young adults. Hiding in Hawk’s Creek, the second novel in the series, was shortlisted by the Canadian Association of Children’s Librarians for the 2006 Book of the Year for Children Award.

Brenda has also written several short stories that were published in an anthology (When Boomers Go Bad, RendezVous Crime 2004) and various magazines. In Winter’s Grip is Brenda’s first adult murder mystery. When not writing, Brenda works as a senior communications advisor in the federal government.

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Mad Max & Canadian Crime Book Awards

Remember the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (Mel Gibson before he completely weirded out), with the spectators chanting in the arena: “Two men enter; one man leaves”? Canadian literary awards aren’t quite that cutthroat (although one might wonder sometimes), so let’s modify the chant to “Many authors enter; one author leaves.” (Or for the shortlist, “Many authors enter; five authors leave,” which, quite frankly, doesn’t sound nearly as good. But I digress...)



We are now less than six months away from Bloody Words and the big Canadian crime book awards events: the new Bloody Words Light Mystery Award (aka the Bony Blithe), presented at the Bloody Words banquet on June 2; the Arthur Ellis Awards, presented on May 31, the night before BW starts; and the Hammett Award (which I consider a quasi-Canadian award because it’s for Canadian and American authors and is presented at the Bloody Words banquet).

The shortlist announcements are even sooner: around mid-February for the Hammett, March 28 for the Bony Blithe, and April 19 for the AEs.

Why do some authors win awards while others don’t? Legitimate question, that. What’s not so legit are complaints from authors, such as the following (yes, these are for real): The judges hated my writing style. The judges didn’t understand/appreciate what my book was all about. The judges hate cosies, noir, humorous mysteries, historicals, romantic suspense (go ahead – fill in the blank with your subgenre), and the flip side: The judges only like police procedurals (I’ve heard this one a lot for the AEs).

Granted, there may be some truth to these points (judges are only human), but the reality of why A wins while B to Z don’t is much simpler and less of a conspiracy.

Even before we get to what judges are looking for in an award-winning book, there’s something very important to consider: Is your book eligible for the award in the first place? The Bony Blithe is for light mysteries, or as stated in the rules, “books that make us smile.” Your angst-ridden noir novel with a tortured-body count in the dozens may be absolutely brilliant, but it doesn’t stand a chance of winning. The Hammett is for “literary excellence in the field of crime writing,” so I think we can assume that cozies are less than likely to win. The Arthur Ellis is the most open, albeit only apparently; the best novel award leans towards more serious books, although almost anything goes with first novel.

Assuming your novel fits the competition criteria, there are two ways judges look at the submissions to determine the winner (and the shortlist, too): absolute quality and relative quality.

Absolute quality is relatively easy to judge: All the elements of the book – plot, structure, characters, setting, dialogue, point of view, believability, writing technique, etc. – have to come together into a unified whole. Then the book has to have that magical spark – that ephemeral je ne sais quoi that makes it stand out from all the other entries.

Relative quality is much trickier and refers to how your book compares with all the other entries in the category. Judging relative quality has caused many a judge to become follicly challenged because there will almost always be more than five books that pass the absolute quality test. This makes for hours of backing-and-forthing among the judges, to say nothing of a certain amount of horse-trading. And then, of those five submissions that make it to the shortlist, there has to be one that stands high above all the rest. It’s not unknown for no one’s first choice to win.

Judges (being only human) have their likes and dislikes in literature. But all awards try to find judges who represent a wide spectrum of the reading public. Even more important, contests look for judges who understand that they are not looking for a book that they “like,” so much as they’re looking for the book that epitomizes the best of crime-writing in its field.

In the end, literary competitions can be a real crap-shoot. You can have a book or story that is a critical and/or commercial success – a piece of work that you’re proud of. But you may be up against other authors with equally stellar books. If your book had been published in another year, you might have been up against fewer books or books of lesser quality. And one year’s judges will almost certainly have a different view than another year’s judges of what makes for a stellar book.

So don’t go into paroxysms of angst about being a lousy writer if you don’t win or aren’t even shortlisted this year. The fact that you’re published probably indicates that you’re a good writer. The stars – or at least, publishers’ publishing schedules – were against you. Have a stiff drink or a big old chocolate bar...and get back to writing.


Cheryl Freedman was Mothership (secretary-treasurer, then executive director) of Crime Writers of Canada for 10 years; she resigned in 2009 but still keeps her hand in. A permanent director of Bloody Words, she’s been on the Bloody Gang since 1999 and is the chair for this year’s BW XII, June 1 – 3, 2012 in Toronto. www.bloodywords2012.com In “real” life, Cheryl is a freelance editor and desktop publisher.

MAYHEM ON MONDAY

Canadian crime writers rock!

So, this is not Mary Jane Maffini blogging although it is her day. I've given her the day off. Shouldn't a winner get some extra perks? And in case you haven't kept up with the good news, Mary Jane won the Agatha Award for Best Short Story at the Malice Domestic conference this past weekend!

Although being an award winner is not something new for our gal, it is especially exciting since it's an award given out in the U.S., voted on by those attending the conference, so mainly Americans. What an honour in the cosy mystery market! It's like breaking into a new market all over again.

This award is for a short story that appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery magazine, the Sept/Oct issue. Hope you'll give it a read at http:www/themysteryplace.com/ Her two previous awards have been the prestigious Arthur Ellis from Crime Writers of Canada, again in the Short Story category, beginning with 'Cotton Armour', which appeared in The Ladies Killing Circle, the first anthology for the group. For a complete list of her many nominations and wins, visit Mary Jane's website at http:www.maryjanemaffini.ca

And there's more good news! Mary Jane Maffini is short listed for another Arthur Ellis Award, for So Much in Common, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Those winners will be announced in Victoria, B.C. on June 2nd, the night before the Bloody Words conference kicks off.

Wait! There's more celebrating to be done. On Mon., May 9th, at 7 p.m., Mary Jane's latest book in the Charlotte Adams' series, The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder, will be launched along with Vicki Delany's Among the Departed, her new Const. Molly Smith mystery...at the Library & Archives, Sunken Lobby, 395 Wellington St.

What a trip you're on MJ! Congratulations.

And also, congratulations to Louise Penny for yet another Agatha Award for Best Novel. She won for her latest Insp. Gamache mystery, Bury Your Dead. Canadians really rocked at Malice!

Hurray for all Canadian crime writers!


Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
Mystery Book Club series coming
April, 2012 from Berkley Prime Crime

CRIME ON MY MIND

Congratulations!

What an exciting night at the Agatha Awards banquet at Malice Domestic on Saturday. Canadian's came out on top in two categories: Best Novel going to Louise Penny, yet again, for Bury Your Dead.

And, the Best Short Story award went to Mary Jane Maffini for So Much in Common which appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery magazine Sept/Oct issue. Welcome to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine!
www.themysteryplace.com

It's so wonderful that two of Canada's best mystery authors are winners at the top cosy conference in the U.S. Canadian crime writer's rock!

Congratulations to you both!