Get this party started!

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Truth be told this party has been warming up since last Tuesday at the Mysterious Bookshop in New York where the launch party for MWA's latest anthology was held. Vengeance, edited by Lee Child, features stories by Michael Connelly, Karin Slaughter, Dennis Lehane, Zoe Sharp, Alafair Burke and a dozen others.

Next up was the Edgars Agents and editors party on Wednesday where Reds Lucy and Ro helped celebrate Hallie's second Mary Higgins Clark nomination. Thursday Edgar Judge Ro got to strut her stuff in a Mad Men style dress at the annual Edgars banquet (that's me with Meredith Cole, Erin Weston and Raven winner Molly Weston waiting for our limo!)- a list of all of the Edgar winners here http://theedgars.com/nominees.html
...and on Friday a trio of JRs headed south for Malice Domestic.

LUCY BURDETTE: We are delighted to report that our own Red, Rhys Bowen, won the Agatha teapot for best historical mystery, Naughty in Nice, Lucy (aka Roberta Isleib) did not come home with a teapot but was thrilled to be nominated for best short story!


HANK PHLLIPPI RYAN: Yay, Rhys! And Roberta, too--that's fantastic! (Oooh, and I'm nominated for three Emmys! For investigative reporting.) Party on!

ROSEMARY: Are you in party mode yet? Well, if you didn't make any of those events, this week on JR we're continuing the celebration by sharing our swag from those parties and hosting our own virtual Cinco de Mayo party on Saturday. Every day this week three lucky commenters will win books and bags from this season's mystery parties.

What's up this week?Tuesday - My trip to Highclere Castle, the real Downton Abbey
Wednesday - a visit from novelist Daniel Judson, who will share information on his latest cutting edge publishing venture with Amazon
Thursday - The Return of Kale (you know how the JRs love food!)
Friday - your official invitation to the Cinco de Mayo party
Saturday - Party On! Best outfit wins a bag of books
Sunday - Do we still love Don Draper?

So in honor of the release of Vengeance - tell us what you'd do - big, small, real or (hopefully) fiction - to get back at someone who did you wrong!

Three winners will receive copies of the book.

(Monday through Friday winners announced on Saturday, Saturday's winners announced on Sunday.)

Name that award!

ROSEMARY: Okay the movies have the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the lesser known Razzies (awarded to titanically bad films.) We've got Grammys, Tonys, Emmys and probably more female-sounding awards I've never heard of. And the mystery community has no shortage of honors it bestows. Bouchercon has the Anthony, MWA has the Edgar and Malice Domestic has the Agatha. There are Barrys, Davids, Macavitys, Loveys, Leftys, Watsons, Dilys Winns, Nero Wolfes and for all I know the Moes, the Larrys and the Curlys. Time to put your thinking caps on - if you were coming up with an award for an accomplishment in the mystery community - or not - what would it be called and what would it be for? Best answer wins a copy of Slugfest which comes out next Tuesday!!

What are you wearing??

ROSEMARY: It's Friday so it's time for some fun. I know most of us aren't practicing our Oscar speeches (although, ahem...some of us have Emmys) but lots of us do watch awards shows and frequently wonder what the heck some of those people were thinking when they went out the door that night.

Other than on your wedding day, what's the fanciest occasion you've ever had to dress up for and what did you wear?

For me it was probably New Year's Eve at the Metropolitan Opera. I've done that for the past two years and that's a dress-up night. Two years ago it was Carmen so I went for a slightly trashy cigar girl look complete with red satin rose at waistline. This year a black and gold strapless but I don't want to get too specific...I may wear it to the Edgars. Didn't get too dressed for the Agathas or Anthonys the year I was nominated. There's probably a picture somewhere but dang if I know what I was wearing. Ten dollars says it was black.

So what's your go-to party girl outfit - and let's just hope it isn't a swan dress like Bjork's.

A Major Award

ROSEMARY: If April really is the cruelest month as T.S. Eliot has written, at least part of it has to do with the fact that the Edgars and the Agathas are awarded in April. Say what you will about awards - and John LeCarre has rather famously just said "Thanks, but no thanks" to being considered for the prestigious Man Booker International Prize - most writers would be thrilled to be nominated for an award. LeCarre has stated he does "not compete for literary prizes." The Booker website more diplomatically explains "Mr. LeCarre asked that his books ... not be submitted for the annual prize to give less established authors the opportunity to win." When I'm John LeCarre I hope I am that generous - right now, I'd love to win an award, but it will be difficult since I am not nominated for anything this year. Whether we like it or not, awards are a measure of success.

Even a "major award" like the leglamp in A Christmas Story. Not many reading this blog are tortured souls slaving away in garrets for our art. We want to write stories that will touch, entertain, educate or perhaps even enlighten readers. The spotlight that winning or even being nominated ("it's an honor...") brings to a work enables us to reach more people. So to any nominating committees out there - there's only one John LeCarre - go ahead and nominate us!

RHYS: I have had more than my share of nominations, and awards too, and it never gets old. First the phone call that says "This is the committee for the Agatha Awards..." Then that lovely stage when you hope you might have won and people congratulate you on being nominated, then the banquet when you can't make yourself swallow food, and finally the moment when the envelope is opened and you hear your name, stand up, stumble to the stage, pausing only to wonder if you really heard your name or you'll reach the podium only to find it was someone else. And then the speech when you hope you won't sound like an idiot and you've mentioned all the right people. It's one of the real highs of a writer's life. I treasure each award I've won. They sit on a bookcase halfway down my stairs so I have to pass them as I go to my office and they are a real morale booster on bad days. Of course I'd still like to add an Edgar to my collection....

HALLIE: I've had the thrill of nomination -- my Writing and Selling Your Mystery got Edgar and Anthony noms. And "Never Tell a Lie" was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark and won the David (Yay, Deadly Ink -- coming up in NJ this August with our own Hank Phillippi Ryan as Guest of Honor). I won the American Crime Writers League award for excellence in mystery reviewing - a huge thrill for which I was completely unprepared! But still I feel like a piker next to my fellow Jungle Reds. I look forward to it 'never getting old'!

ROSEMARY: I was nominated for the Agatha for Pushing Up Daisies and I was on tour so they had a hard time reaching me. I had picked up a few messages from someone on the Agatha Committee but they didn't say what they were calling about - I was convinced it was because I hadn't checked Chicken or Vegetarian - until I actually heard the words. It was thrilling. For the Anthony I was nominated along with Stieg Larssen so I put on my party dress and was much more relaxed since I didn't think I had a prayer of winning! Still a bridesmaid...

HANK: Oh, awards! It brings tears to my eyes to think about it.. I completely remember when I got the call about the Agatha Nom for Prime Time. I had NO IDEA there was a phone call, so when I heard the "This is the awards committee from Malice Domestic"--I actually literally burst into tears. And when I won...well, I still get goose bumps. Endlessly grateful.

Hilariously, my Anthony nominations--which come by email--were caught in my spam filter! And I was up against the iconic and amazing Dennis Lehane for the short story Anthony--and burst out laughing when I won! (Can you imagine? His story--which was also about a dog, coincidentally, is now being made into a major motion picture. SO it goes.) (And I touch my Macavity for luck every day before I start writing.)

And this year? Drive Time is up for the Agatha for Best Novel! SO fantastic! And I am up against, well, names SO BIG I hesitate to mention them. (Penny, Pickard, Andrews and Webber.) Can you hear me howling with laughter? And I get you, RO. I am going to be VERY relaxed and happy. I already am.

Seriously: you always feel as if you shouldn't think of a speech in advance, you know, because it'll jinx the results. But a wise person once told me--you MUST figure out what to say. It's the only respectful thing to do.

ROBERTA: Those are great names Hank, but no greater than yours! Six Strokes Under was nominated for a best first Agatha before I even knew there were awards. What a thrill! My husband and my agent both came down for the banquet. Unfortunately, I was up against some very strong contenders, Nancy Martin and (ahem) Julia Spencer Fleming to name two. I knew perfectly well that Julia had hit the dang book out of the park but there's always a squiggle of hope--yes, my book was pretty good too.

I've had two Anthony nominations for Six strokes under and Putt to Death--I knew these were long shots but still great great fun. And one short story nom for a Macavity and I must say that I totally covet one of those prizes that looks like a cat. Wait, the teapot would be lovely too. and I wouldn't turn away the funny looking Poe man. Just saying...I'm not done yet:)

JULIA: What I - and I suspect a lot of people - remember about that Agatha awards banquet is the way my husband literally leaped in the air when my name was announced. He got it before I did - I was sitting there telling myself to smile and applaud. Advice I've had LOTS of practice with since. At this point I've lost many more awards than I've won.

My funniest awards story also has to do with Ross. It had been a horribly snowy winter here in Maine, so much so that poor Ross had badly strained his back shoveling out our driveway. He was supposed to be lying on the floor at home, resting. I was next door, helping my neighbor clear her porch roof and gutters. Suddenly we see the bizarre sight of my husband, staggering stiffly down our country road with a parka tossed over his pajamas, supported by our oldest daughter. He was shouting unintelligibly - something about crying and being bombed, it sounded like. "Oh, my God," the neighbor gasped. "Someone's dead." Finally he got close enough to hear. "'Out of the Deep I Cry' has been nominated for an Edgar!"

RHYS: Julia--you and I were up against each other for the Edgar. Was that fair, I ask? So seldom that a woman is even nominated, I can't help but believe that we split the vote between us! But it was fun sitting at the same table, wasn't it? And getting a huge flower arrangement from the publisher. Let's hope there will be a next time.

ROSEMARY: So, all due respect to Mr. LeCarre - it's great to hear it when "you like us...you really like us.." What do you think...does it make a difference to you as readers?

This is a Work of Fiction

fic*tion (fik'shun) n. - an imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
-American Heritage College Dictionary


RO: I am about to write an Author's note for my second mystery novel, The Big Dirt Nap. I didn't do it for the first because it didn't seem necessary. After all, I was writing fiction. Did I really need to explain that these characters didn't exist? This town didn't exist? Apparently so.


My editor thinks I need to explain that there is really no native American tribe called the Quepochas, a fictional group that is referenced in the book. While I think this is amusing, she's probably right. One online reviewer complained that my debut novel, Pushing Up Daisies, wasn't accurate because there was no UConn campus where I had one in the book. It didn't seem to bother her that there was no TOWN, no diner and no people there, only that there was no campus. Go figure.


Is it that readers nowadays assume everything is ripped from the headlines, and they are looking for what they believe to be mistakes? Have the lines between fiction and non-fiction become so blurred that people can't tell one from the other?What the hell..I should probably just call it a memoir. Then no one would expect it to be accurate.


Author's NoteThe Big Dirt Nap is a work of fiction. While there is a state of Connecticut and a University of Connecticut, pretty much everything else in the book just exists between my ears. Any other descriptions, laws, people, places or events that are accurate are purely accidental.



ROBERTA: Interesting Ro! There is an automatic disclaimer on the copyright page of all my books, mostly there to protect the publisher from lawsuits I imagine. Do you think some angry fan would assault you (legally) for making up an Indian tribe? I do kind of like the idea of an author's note providing info for READERS, not just for protection. I would put it at the back of the book if you had a choice. And by the way, do you prefer acknowledgments at the front or the back? And how many other obsessive people even look at those pages? (Aside from the aspiring writers who are instructed to look there for agent mentions as a matter of course...and that's not bad advice.)


HANK: I think it's kind of--funny, actually. Maybe it's because you made up such a believable and clever name for the tribe. But I agree--if it's fiction, it's um, made up.

And yes, Roberta, I always read those pages. It's a kind of--six degreees of separation game. I love to see if I know who they know. Or whether the info is illuminating or revealing in any way. Front of the book or back? Hmmm. Put them in the front and there's the problem of: I'd like to thank Dr. Joe Shmo for all his help in learing about how to recognize fake fingerprints.... So much for THAT plot!

In Prime Time and Face Time, I kind of tweaked the geography of Swampscott, Massachusetts and the highway to the Cape. And I just said so in the author's page. And I make up the names of streets in Boston if bad things happen. In DRIVE TIME, I have to make up names of cars! And so far, I've created a problem car called a Calera. Would you pronounce that Ka-LEHR-a?

HALLIE: Interesting, isn't it, how we write those disclaimers--and yet most characters and situations in a novel (or in MY novels, at any rate) are sparked by something real. In my new book, there's a character who vacuums her front walk...I had a neighbor who did that. And there's a Victorian ark of a house on which my husband and I were (fortunately) overbid; the people who bought it found a hidden room. That house, with its leather wallpaper and stained glass, is in "Never Tell a Lie."
I love reading acknowledgments, too. Aren't they kind of a Rorschach? I'm always curious to discover whether writing the book took "a village" as mine do. And what does it mean, I wonder, when there are NO acknowledgments?


RO: Ugh, there was a typo in my acks. After going over my manuscript so carefully, apparently no one looked at the acks, which by the way were PERFECT when I sent them in.

PS.....Don't forget to come back for Wednesday's post when our guest blogger will be Jane Cleland, president of MWA/NY Chapter and author of the Agatha-nominated Josie Prescott series.