And the winner is...

Sandra Parshall

Meryl Streep said recently that “there’s no such thing as the ‘best’ actress” and that “everybody wins” in a year when many great movies provide showcases for talent. Of course, she said this while accepting a best actress award from the Screen Actors Guild, but there is some truth and good sense in the statement. It’s wishful thinking, though, to imagine that creative people can rise above the competitive streak that is an inborn aspect of human nature.

Writers aren’t exempt from the craving to outshine one another. Maybe we’re not as cutthroat about it as movie and TV people, but would most of us trample the bodies of our beloved grandmothers to get to an Edgar Award? You bet. If you win a single award of any kind, you will be labeled forevermore an “award-winning author” – regardless of whether you continue to turn out good books or never produce another that’s halfway readable.

I’m thinking about all this because it’s that time of year again, when Malice Domestic registrants are filling out their Agatha Award nomination ballots and everybody’s looking at the just-released list of Edgar nominees and saying, “Huh?”

The campaigning for an Agatha nomination usually takes the form of e-mails and mystery e-list posts “reminding” everyone that a writer’s book is eligible for a nomination. When the reminder is coming from a personal friend, it’s hard not to feel pressured. Sometimes I think writers expect a nomination simply because they’re friendly with a lot of the people who will do the nominating. But what if you don’t think your friend’s book is one of the five best of the entire year? You don’t have to say so, of course, and no one will see your ballot except the person who counts it. The whole situation is uncomfortable, though -- and unnecessary. If I think a book is terrific, I’m going to remember it. I don’t need to be reminded of its existence.

The Anthony Awards given out at Bouchercon, and many other crime fiction awards, are the result of the same sort of process. Attendance at a conference, or membership in an organization, or even a subscription to a mystery magazine, gives a person the right to make nominations. A lot of factors influence the nominators – friendship, subgenre preferences, biases that have nothing to do with the quality of books (“I don’t like violent books, or books with graphic sex, regardless of how well-written and well-plotted they are”), and, most important, the limits on how much a person can read in one year. If you haven’t read every crime novel published in the last year, how can you choose the best?

That brings us to the Edgars, which are awarded by committees. Every year both writers and fans complain about the nominations. “I’ve never HEARD of most of these books! How can they be the best?” (I hope you see the fatal flaw in that reasoning.) “Why don’t they ever nominate a cozy?” And so on. The refrain is the same, year after year.

I’ve done my share of grousing when a book I loved – for example, Laura Lippman’s wonderful What the Dead Know – is nominated for (and ultimately wins) just about every other award in existence but doesn’t receive an Edgar nomination. I don't always agree with their choices, but I have to respect the simple fact that the Edgar judges do read every eligible book that is published and submitted by publishers for consideration. Each unpaid judge in the novel categories suspends normal life for a year and reads hundreds upon hundreds of books before choosing the five she/he considers best. As I understand it, a period of discussion and perhaps re-reading follows to reconcile disagreements among the members of a particular panel, and ultimately they arrive at a list of finalists. Then they choose the winner in that category. It’s not surprising that this laborious process usually produces nominations for serious books that display outstanding, original writing and in some cases tackle social issues.

Lighter books will have a chance at other awards. A mystery or thriller doesn’t have to be life-changing to be great entertainment. It doesn’t have to pulsate with psychological or social significance that will outlast the ages. Each award has criteria, and the people making nominations have to keep those criteria in mind. You wouldn’t nominate a Karin Slaughter book for an Agatha. That doesn’t mean the Slaughter book is worthless. You can’t expect to see a cooking cozy get an Edgar nomination. That doesn’t mean the cozy isn’t entertaining (with great recipes included). And if your own book receives no nominations, that doesn’t make it a failure. Mystery writers might be happier if no awards were ever given, if we weren’t forced to applaud for authors whose books were deemed “better” than ours. Awards are here to stay, though, and all we can do is try to be realistic and sensible about them.

Would I give up my own Agatha Award? Are you nuts? Will I fill out my Agatha and Anthony ballots this year? Of course. Will I be annoyed if my favorites don’t win? Of course. I’m only human, after all.


In case you’re interested, the book I’d like to see win the Agatha for Best Novel is I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming.







My favorite for the Anthony is Master of the Delta by Thomas H. Cook.

Which books are you rooting for this time around?

Solitary writers? I don't know any

Sandra Parshall

Mystery writers, as much as any other authors, like to play up the image of the solitary wordsmith pecking away (preferably in an unheated attic), writing about imaginary people but shunning contact with the real kind.

Attend a mystery conference and you’ll see how absurd that notion is. Mystery writers are the friendliest people I’ve ever met, and many are likely to give you a big hug even if your previous acquaintance has been limited to online exchanges. (I’ve gotten used to people I’ve never met throwing their arms around me, but I'll admit it was startling at first.) In between conferences, those online chats keep everybody in touch, but there’s nothing like a mystery con to make a writer feel like part of a huge community of authors.

I’m only going to two conferences this year, and the first, Malice Domestic, is now past, leaving behind a lingering nostalgia for the energy and enthusiasm of a big crowd of writers and fans. Okay, I’ll admit Malice Domestic was more exciting last year, when I was an Agatha nominee (and winner). But this year was great in its own way because four friends from the Guppies Chapter of Sisters in Crime were nominated.

Liz Zelvin, my blog sister, was nominated for Best Short Story, as was Nan Higginson. Beth Groundwater was nominated for Best First Novel for A Real Basket Case. Hank Phillippi Ryan won the prize for her first novel, Prime Time. Here they are: Liz, Beth, Hank, and Nan.


They’re all terrific writers, and you’ll be hearing a lot more from and about them in the future.

The personal highlight of Malice this year came when a woman in the audience at my panel (“After the Agatha: You’ve won! What’s next?”) revealed that she is one of Poisoned Pen Press’s manuscript screeners and was delighted to have played a part in getting my first book, The Heat of the Moon, published. I wanted to find her and thank her afterward, but she had vanished. I hope she knows her words gave me a warm glow that's going to last a while.

So far everything I’ve done at Malice has been tied to The Heat of the Moon. In 2006, the book had just been published and my only goal was to make people aware of it. In 2007, I was on the Best First Novel nominees panel and feeling a little anxious that THOTM would overshadow the newly-released Disturbing the Dead. This year, I was on a panel of past Agatha winners, having fun but regretting that I didn't have another brand-new book in hand to talk about.

What’s in store for me next spring? Even I’m not sure yet. But I know I’ll be at Malice, getting and giving hugs, exhausting my cheek muscles with nonstop smiling, and enjoying the great company.

More of my Malice Domestic photos are posted at: www.flickr.com/photos/guppies/

Confessions of an Ex-Spelling Bee Champ

Elizabeth Zelvin

Funny thing: I remembered the title of Alix Kates Schulman’s seminal feminist book about having been a prom queen as Confessions, not Memoirs, though when that title drew a blank on Amazon, I googled her and found that I was wrong. In American culture, we have a peculiarly ambivalent attitude about being good at something. We adore those with talents and accomplishments, but we expect them to disavow at least some of the pride and pleasure they may feel in their success.

I wish I could say I went through the half century between when I first claimed I wanted to be a writer and getting an offer for my first novel oblivious to what other people thought. But I fall somewhere along that vast continuum between saints filled with spiritual humility and narcissists who are certain they’re the Great I Am. Confession Number One: I care what people think. I hated being an unpublished writer perhaps less because it made me doubt myself than because I feared that others would conclude my writing wasn’t good enough.

I learned many valuable life lessons from my mother, an energetic high achiever who went to law school in 1921 and got a doctorate at the age of 69. But she never taught me how to fail. My mother faced the world with confidence, no matter what, because she could always say, “I am a lawyer.” Yet she didn’t practice law successfully. Like most of the handful of women lawyers of her generation, she had to find a niche on the sidelines, in her case writing and editing legal books. But so powerful was the illusion created by her sense of her own identity that she was always “my mother the lawyer” to me.

My father, a lawyer too, was one of those crossword puzzle demons who did the Sunday New York Times puzzle in ink every week. When I asked what something meant, he would say, “Look it up.” In those days, this meant not a quick romp through Google but dusting off the Webster’s Unabridged or worse, plodding down the wooden stairs to the cold basement to consult the encyclopedia. We had a full set of the Encyclopedia Americana, though in adult life I acquired a set of the 1962 Britannica and clung to it long past its usefulness. We were all natural spellers who played fierce family games of Scrabble when it first came out. I still remember the sense of triumph I felt—I must have been nine or ten—when I gave the correct spelling of “exhilarated” after my mother insisted that middle “a” was an “i” and my dad thought it was an “e.” We settled the argument by looking it up, and I felt—exhilarated.

At my junior high in Queens, we were invited to participate in the National Spelling Bee. It wasn’t televised in those days, but it was still a big deal, especially as it was sponsored by Scripps-Howard newspapers and therefore got good media coverage. It’s still the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and word lists going back to 1950, five years before I competed in it in seventh grade, are still in existence.

I had never had a significant failure in those days. I got high grades on tests and was praised by teachers, and I did well enough in sports to please my intellectual family. I easily won the seventh grade spelling bee and then the whole school’s, competing against older kids in the eighth and ninth grades. I remember studying long lists of abstruse words with more pleasure than anxiety. It was no big deal: if I’d seen it, I could spell it. I instinctively fell into the pattern of spelling with pauses between syllables to break each word down into manageable parts.

I remember my classmates—a group of bright and talented kids who went through junior high together as “the SP orchestra class"—breaking into spontaneous applause as I returned to the classroom after winning the schoolwide bee. It had been announced on the PA system. They did the same when I won the competition for the whole school district. I recently found the place in my adolescent diary where I’d written excitedly: I WON THE DISTRICT SPELLING BEE!!! Confession Number Two: I was proud of my achievement. Why shouldn’t I be?

Then came the New York citywide spelling bee. Reader, I lost it. I fell afoul of not one of the difficult words I’d studied but a simple one I’d never heard before: “intermittent.” I got that second “e” right, but I failed to double the “t,” and that was it. No trip to Washington DC to compete in the national finals against kids from all over the country. And no applause when I slunk back into the classroom that afternoon.

I never misspelled “intermittent” again. In fact, for many years I assured people that I hadn’t misspelled a word since 1955. It’s still true if you don’t count a neurological glitch I’ve developed recently: a twist between brain and fingers on the keyboard that makes me type the wrong homonym (eg “there” for “their” or “they’re,” “too” for “two” or “to”) or even a similar word (eg “residence” for “restaurant”).

And for many years, going through the vicissitudes of life, I didn’t get that applause that rewards success, that joy of winning that our culture so treasures—until now. Yep, this is about my Agatha nomination for Best Short Story for “Death Will Clean Your Closet.” This time, the outcome of the final round won’t depend what I do at Malice Domestic, where the winner is selected. The challenge is in the competition--two proven mystery stars and a friend--and the personal tastes of the voters. There's no way to predict if I'll win. But the nomination feels every bit as good as winning the district spelling bee. And this time, that may be win enough for me.

Interview with Nancy Pickard

Interviewer: Elizabeth Zelvin


Have you always been a writer? Have you had day jobs or always made your living as a novelist? Have you put any other dreams aside for writing?

I've always been a writer, though I was not one of those precocious children who wrote a novel at age 12. I graduated from journalism school at the University of Missouri and then held day jobs until I was about 35, at which time I plunged fulltime, right from Day One, into being a novelist. Other dreams? You mean like paying the mortgage? lol. Yes, I've put aside some dreams, but none of them lured me on as writing has done.

I first discovered your work when I read and loved the first Jenny Cain mystery, GENEROUS DEATH. What prompted you to pick a charitable foundation as the focus of your mystery series. Did you plan a series when you wrote the first one? And why mystery?

Thank you! I picked a charitable foundation because I decided that where there's death and money, there's the opportunity for foul play. I wasn't thinking of a series until after Generous Death was published and I heard from readers that they wanted more of it. Mystery? Because it was the form of the novel with which I was the most familiar, and because I was a Nancy Drew girl.

One of the things that makes Jenny Cain interesting is that she comes from quite a dysfunctional family, including a father who’s a terrible liability. Where did they come from? Did the Cains grow out of a germ of reality or a “what if”?

I still don't know where they came from. Honest. I don't have a sister, my mother is extremely sane, and my father was spacy only in the sweetest, kindest way.

How did it feel to let go of Jenny and move on to another series? How did the process of launching a multi-book story arc differ the second time around? What had you learned that made it easier—or harder? Or simply different?

It felt okay, because she seemed to have done all she wanted to do by then. It was just a feeling that the time was right for her and for me. When I started the Marie Lightfoot series I knew from the start that it would be a trilogy, because I wanted to do other things after that. I learned so much from the Jenny books! It's almost impossible to start listing them, so I'll just settle for saying that I learned how to write novels.

How did you come to write the cooking mysteries based on the late Virginia Rich’s work? What did you expect when you decided to do this, and did it turn out the way you expected, or were there surprises?

I was asked by her editor, with the approval of her widower, to take up the series. I had been a fan and had even very briefly corresponded with her, so that just felt right, too. It didn't turn out as I expected--it was much, much harder. The biggest--and nicest--surprise was discovering how "older women" welcomed a sleuth who was still alive and kicking in every way, including love. Now I'm almost as old as Eugenia Potter, and I wish I'd made her seem even younger!

How do you write? Do you have routines or rituals? Do you outline beforehand, and if so, do you stick to the outline? How much do you revise? Who reads or critiques your work before it takes its final form?

I write by the seat of my pants. I have no rituals, unless multiple cups of coffee counts, which I suppose it does. I can write almost anywhere, at almost any time of day. I write a proposal in order to go to contract, and then I mostly ignore my own proposal and let the book develop as it will. I revise constantly. With short stories, I ask writer friends to read them before I submit them. I used to do the same with my novels. But now I have so many readers at Ballantine--my editor, Linda Marrow, plus two other editors who help her, and other people at the publishing house--that I just let them tell me everything I need to know. It's a great editorial team, and I'm grateful.

Along with the novels, your short stories are widely admired, especially “Afraid All the Time” and “There Is No Crime on Easter Island.” Do you have any stories to tell about the writing of these or readers’ response to them?

A couple of things--one, it is true that sometimes readers will find our novels because they've read a short story they liked. And two--I had to learn that every short story needs an epiphany--an ah ha moment for a character or for the reader--before it will work.

Have you had mentors? Who has inspired and/or helped you along the way?

I've been inspired by and helped by so many people, including mystery writers. My senior high school English teacher, Nina Mackey, always comes to mind. And there was a novelist, Alice Winter, who was a mentor for several years.

What was it like being one of the founding mothers of Sisters in Crime? How do you think women mystery writers are faring 20 years later? What still needs to be done?

It was exciting, it was scary, it was fun. We were so lucky to be part of that, as is anybody who gets in on the ground floor of a revolution that actually leads to good things. As for how we're faring now, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure. Certainly, we're an established part of the scene. Are we getting equal treatment in terms of money, reviews, advertising, etc.? I don't know. I, personally, feel fairly treated, but there seems to be some evidence that some things have not changed all that much for the better.

You’ve just won the Agatha for Best Novel for your standalone, THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLAINS. Did you know when you wrote it that this was something special?

I only knew it was special to me, because it was the culmination of a lot of years of work and learning, and because it allowed me to write the kind of book, starring the kind of people, I'd been wanting to write.

You’ve won several Agathas over the years and many other awards? Is any of them especially meaningful to you, and why?

Out of my four teapots, the one I just won for Virgin probably means the most, because it was a welcome back after years of hibernation while I was working on improving my writing. It was an affirmation that I was on the right track. But I was thrilled to get the first one, for Bum Steer, and thrilled to win one the very next year, for I.O.U., and the one I won for a short story, "Out of Africa," meant a lot, because I particularly loved that story.

THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLAINS is set in a part of Kansas most of us don’t know exists, as was the Jenny Cain book BUM STEER. The first time we met, I mentioned that BUM STEER was my favorite in the series, and you said it was yours too. Would you care to comment on that—on Kansas, on the importance of setting, and/or on writing about home?

I've been so slow to come home to Kansas, in terms of my novels. And now it's so important to me. I love so many of the landscapes of this state, and I know so many wonderful people here, that it gives me tremendous pleasure to bust a few stereotypes about it when I get the chance.

Do you have any words of wisdom for writers starting out today—both young ones and those of us who have had a long journey to the point of first publication?

This may seem an odd, even discouraging piece of advice, but I promise you it's a good one: in the phrase, "professional writer," the word professional is as important as the word writer. "Professional". . .like doctors are professionals, and lawyers, and everybody else who takes many years and makes sacrifices and goes through hard times to reach their goal. They say it takes l0 years to become good at anything, and I think it's helpful to remember that's applicable to writing. That's ten years of writing, writing, writing, maybe without being published during that time. That's years of focusing on the writing, not on the publishing, though there will certainly be dreams of that. It's keeping the horse of writing in front of the cart of publishing, where they both belong. Starting writers, apprentice writers, master writers, all can benefit from being patient with themselves and the process. It's a long process. A lifetime. Go easy on yourself and give your dreams plenty of time to develop fully. Even if you're 80 years old. In ten years, you'll be 90, and not only is there nothing wrong with being published for the first time at 90, trust me, it will get you good publicity!

The Teapot and the Orphan

Sandra Parshall

Of course I’m thrilled that my 2006 book, The Heat of the Moon, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel at the Malice Domestic conference on May 5. I waited a long time to see it published, I feel both happy and relieved that reviewers and readers have received it well, and I’ll cherish the award (which comes in the shape of a teapot) forever.

I’m a little torn, though. While my first book is getting so much attention a year after publication, my second, Disturbing the Dead, is waiting on the sidelines like a neglected orphan. It’s had good reviews, for which I’m grateful, and readers who have already read The Heat of the Moon and liked it have bought the second book. The Agatha nomination and now the award have made a whole new set of readers aware of the first, though, and I feel almost as if I’m launching it again. I thought I would spend this year talking about and promoting DTD, and I was geared up for that, but lately I’ve talked mostly about THOTM.

Terrible problem to have, right? I’m not complaining! I’m just remarking on a situation I’d never imagined, much less planned for. When someone buys a copy of the first book, I thrust a copy of the second forward. “This is the sequel. It’s new! It’s a great story! You’ll love it!” (Maybe I don’t sound desperate, but that’s the way I feel.) If they smile and say they’ll read the first before considering the second, I make sure they have a bookmark or promotional card with quotes from the reviews of Disturbing the Dead. Don’t forget my new baby, I plead silently. I have a feeling that if DTD were getting all the attention, I’d be begging people not to forget the book that came first.

I’m still relatively new to book promotion and perhaps too attached to my books to be businesslike about selling them. I want everybody to love them equally. I don’t want anyone to favor one over the other. If I have the good fortune to publish a dozen novels, will I drive myself nuts trying to nurture all of them at once? Or will I eventually learn to promote one at a time and let the rest wait in the shadows? I’ve asked more experienced writers a million questions about every other aspect of the business -- okay, I’m a pest, I admit it -- but this is one subject that’s never come up. I’d like to hear how other writers feel about it.

I have to find a place for the Agatha teapot, where it will be safe from the paws and tails of our two curious cats. I’ll give THOTM a kiss on the cover and say, Well done, kid. But I’ll give DTD a reassuring pat and whisper, Hang in there, I haven’t forgotten you.

Disturbance in the Field

Roberta Isleib (Guest Blogger)

It's been a huge month so far--nothing like the launch of a new book -- Deadly Advice (Berkley) -- to get the old adrenaline flowing. For me, it's a time for biting nails and gnashing teeth, while I wait for feedback from the world in the form of reviews, sales, or e-mail from readers. It's a time forconvincing myself that Amazon numbers are meaningless and promising I will not go back to that damn site again, and an hour later, refreshing the web address to search for any small improvement in ranking that might be a harbinger of success.

So it was a wonderful distraction to hear that my short story "Disturbance in the Field" in the anthology Seasmoke from Level Best Books had been nominated for a Malice Domestic Agatha Award (http://malicedomestic.org/agathaslate.htm). I don't write many short stories--the longer form of the novel seems to come more naturally. In a short story, the characters have to be pared down and the plot has to be clear and, well, short.

The idea for "Disturbance" came to me when a good friend was describing her experience with hiring a Feng Shui consultant. My friend was emerging from an unpleasant divorce and from what I remember, had the idea that changing the energy in her home might change her life as well. So she called a guy right out of the online Yellow Pages. The consultant arrived with his wife and the three of them went through the house, room by room. "The mirror by the bed is wrong. Your spirit travels while you're sleeping and gets frightened by its reflection," the couple informed her after seeing her bedroom.

"Light blue is a sad and watery color," they said regretfully about the walls. "Human beings need forest-colored rooms." And so it went: she needed to get rid of the king-sized bed, take the tablecloth off the dining room table, change the position of her son¹s desk. I stopped my friend mid-way through her descriptions so I could get paper and pen: the seed for my story was sprouting. What if my psychologist character from Deadly Advice was asked by her detective acquaintance to "ride along" on a case? And what if she had just taken a course in Feng Shui and began to notice small details about the dead woman's home which might explain her death? As you might imagine, this was a lot of fun to write, though tricky to tuck all the ends in neatly.

This week I received a note from Chris, a fan of my golf mysteries who had read "Disturbance in the Field" after the Agatha nominations were announced. She said it reminded her of "A Jury of her Peers" written by Susan Glaspell in 1917. "What made me think of it was the sensitivity to almost subliminal clues--ones that were perhaps more visible to a female, or to a therapist!"
Of course I googled "A Jury of her Peers" right away. It's a wonderful story about a woman accused of murdering her husband while he lies asleep in their bed, told from the perspective of two of her neighbors. The website on which the story appears (http://www.learner.org/exhibits/literature/story/fulltext.html) also contains essays about what makes a good short story.

Perusing all of this material kept me from hitting that Amazon refresh bar for at least an hour! So thanks to Chris for her nice email. And thanks to the gracious Daughters of Poe for letting me talk about it. Here's hoping you enjoy both Susan Glaspell's story and "Disturbance in the Field."
Visit the author's website at http://robertaisleib.com/disturbance.html.

Congratulaions to Deadly Daughter Sandra

From All the Deadly Daughters!

Congratulations to our own Sandra Parshall, whose book, THE HEAT OF THE MOON, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery.

Sandra's book is wonderful; a trip to her website reveals that HEAT is now also available in the U.K., and her new book, DISTURBING THE DEAD, will be out soon.


We're proud to blog with such a great writer, and we're glad to see that she's been recognized for her work.