2009 Edgar Awards

The Mystery Writers of America named C. J. Box's Blue Heaven the best novel of 2009. Other 2009 Edgar winners:
Best First Novel: The Foreigner by Francie Lin
Best Paperback Original: China Lake by Meg Gardiner
Best Fact Crime: American Lightning: Terror, Mystery and the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum
Best Critical/Biographical: Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to his Tell-Tale Stories by Dr. Harry Lee Poe
Best Short Story: "Skinhead Central," Mystery Writers of America Presents: The Blue Religion by T. Jefferson Parker
Best Juvenile: The Postcard by Tony Abbott
Best Young Adult: Paper Towns by John Green
Best Play: The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza
Best Television Episode Teleplay: Prayer of the Bone, Wire in the Blood, Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson
Best Motion Picture Screen Play: In Bruges, Screenplay by Martin McDonagh
Robert L. Fish Memorial Award: "Buckner's Error," Queens Noir by Joseph Guglielmelli
Raven Awards: Edgar Allan Poe Society, Baltimore, Md., and Poe House, Baltimore, Md.
S&S/Mary Higgins Clark Award: The Killer's Wife by Bill Floyd

2009 Nebula Awards

The winners of the Nebula Awards, sponsored and voted on by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, are:
Best Novel: Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin
Best Novella: The Spacetime Pool by Catherine Asaro
Best Novelette: Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel
Best Short Story: Trophy Wives by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (
Script: WALL-E screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon; original story by Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter

Other awards and their winners:
Andre Norton Award: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) by Ysabeau S. Wilce
SFWA Service Award: Victoria Strauss
Bradbury Award for excellence in screenwriting: Joss Whedon
Grand Master Award: Harry Harrison
Author Emerita: M.J. Engh
A new honor, the Solstice Award, given to speculative fiction writers making a positive impact in the genres of science fiction or fantasy, was awarded to Kate Wilhelm, Martin H. Greenberg and the late Algis Budrys.

2009 Pultizer Prizes

The winners in Letters, Drama, and Music are:
Fiction: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Drama: Ruined by Lynn Nottage
History: The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
Biography: American Lion by Jon Meacham
Poetry: The Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin
General Nonfiction: Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
Music: Double Sextet by Steve Reich

Author J.G. Ballard Dies

J. G. Ballard, best known for his autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, has died. His other works include Crash, High-Rise, and The Crystal World. His writing helped set the adventurous tone for the British science fiction magazine New Worlds. In the 1960s,Ballard and Michael Moorcock, among others, were described as part of a New Wave in science fiction writing. Ballard recently published an autobiography, Miracles of Life.

HarperCollins Plans on Publishing New Works of the Late Michael Crichton

HarperCollins has announced that the late Michael Crichton, best selling author of Jurassic Park and other thrillers, left behind at least one finished novel and about one-third of a second.HarperCollins will release Pirate Latitudes, an adventure story set in Jamaica in the 17th century, on Nov. 24. The company also plans to publish a technological thriller in the fall of 2010, a novel that Mr. Crichton was writing when he died. Crichton's assistant discovered Pirate Latitudes in Crichton's computer files after his death. The novel features a pirate named Hunter and the governor of Jamaica, and their plan to raid a Spanish treasure galleon. HarperCollins does not plan to take Crichton’s name and create a franchise in the way that ghostwriters have continued to publish books under Robert Ludlum’s name long after his death

2009 Bancroft Prize

The winners of the 2009 Bancroft Prize, awarded by Columbia University to the authors of books of "exceptional merit in the fields of American history, biography and diplomacy," are: Thomas G. Andrews for Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War , Drew Gilpin Faust for This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War ,and Pekka Hämäläinen for The Comanche Empire .

Lifetime Introduces 2009 Nora Roberts Movies March 21

Lifetime will kick off the premiere of the 2009 Nora Roberts Collection with a Nora-thon this Saturday, March 21. All the previous movies made from Nora's books will air starting at 11 am PT/ET with Sanctuary, Blue Smoke, Carolina Moon, Montana Sky and Angels Fall. Nora Roberts' Northern Lights will premiere at 9 pm ET/PT on Saturday night starring LeAnn Rimes. Nora Roberts' Midnight Bayou with Jerry O'Connell and Faye Dunaway will premiere on March 28. Nora Roberts' High Noon will air on April 4; Cybill Shepherd is one of the cast. The final movie, Nora Roberts' Tribute starring Brittany Murphy will air on Saturday, April 11. Encore airings of each movie will be shown immediately after the premiere, at 9 pm on the Sunday and Monday after the premiere. On Sunday, April 12, there will be a mini Nora-thon, with all the 2009 Nora Roberts Collection airing one after the other starting at 3 pm ET/PT.

Man Booker International Prize Shortlist

Fourteen authors from 12 countries have been named to the shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize. The Man Booker International Prize is given every two years acknowledging a writer's contribution to world literature. The nominees are Evan S. Connell, Joyce Carol Oates and E.L. Doctorow (U.S.), Mahasweta Devi Bangladesh), James Kelman (U.K.), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Arnošt Lustig (Czech Republic), Alice Munro (Canada), V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/India), Antonio Tabucchi Italy), Ngugi Wa Thiong'O (Kenya), Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia), Peter Carey (Australia) and Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia). Jane Smiley, chair of the judges, said that choosing the shortlist had made the judges aware of "how unusual and astonishing the literary world really is. . . . We've all read books by authors we had never heard of before and they have turned out to be some of the best books we've ever read. It makes me wonder who else is out there untranslated into English."

Story Prize Award

Tobias Wolff has won the $20,000 Story Prize for his collection Our Story Begins. Runners up were Jhumpa Lahiri for Unaccustomed Earth and Joe Meno for Demons in the Spring. They both receive $5,000. The judges said this about Tobias' work: "The previously uncollected pieces by Wolff in this new collection show an increasingly severe insistence on the most telling and specific detail as the author creates entire worlds, entire life stories, out of eloquent molecules of narrative. The emotional impact of these lapidary stories is specific and powerful. It is this great sense of the human condition, combined with the close detailing of everyday life that makes Tobias Wolff such an exceptional writer."

Playwright Horton Foote Dead at 92

Horton Foote, playwright and screenwriter, died March 4. Foote wrote more than 50 plays and films. He won a Pultizer Prize in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta. He also won 2 Oscars for his screen adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and for his original script Tender Mercies. Frank Rich, who as chief theater critic of The New York Times in the 1980s was one of Mr. Foote’s champions, once called him “one of America’s living literary wonders.” On Wednesday Mr. Rich described Mr. Foote as “a major American dramatist whose epic body of work recalls Chekhov in its quotidian comedy and heartbreak, and Faulkner in its ability to make his own corner of America stand for the whole.”

Author Philip Jose Farmer Dead at 91

Philip Jose Farmer, a longtime Peoria resident, died on February 25. Farmer wrote more than 75 novels, including the Riverworld, Dayworld, and World of Tiers series. He won the Hugo Award three times and the Grand Master Award for Science Fiction in 2001. Farmer's first published story, "The Lovers",(1952) was based on a love affair between an earth man and an alien woman. Its treatment of sexuality made him a well-discussed writer. Originally, the story was rejected by 2 editors. Yet it ended up earning Farmer a Hugo award for the "most promising new author." Farmer was well-respected in the science fiction world. Robert Heinlein dedicated his classic novel Strangers in a Strange Land to Farmer. Farmer's last book, The City Beyond Play, was published in 2007.

2009 Pen Faulkner Award Announced

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill has won the $15,000 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The four finalists, who each receive $5,000 are: Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, A Person of Interest by Susan Choi, Lush Life by Richard Price and Serena by Ron Rash.

2009 Agatha Nominees Announed

Best Novel:
Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews
A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
Buckingham Palace Gardens by Anne Perry
I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming
Best First Novel:
Through a Glass, Deadly by Sarah Atwell
The Diva Runs Out of Thyme by Krista Davis
Pushing Up Daisies by Rosemary Harris
Death of a Cozy Writer by G.M. Malliet )
Paper, Scissors, Death by Joanna Campbell Slan
Nonfiction:
African American Mystery Writers: A Historical & Thematic Study
by Frankie Y. Bailey
How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries by Kathy Lynn Emerson
Anthony Boucher, A Bibliography by Jeff Marks
Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories
by Dr. Harry Lee Poe
The Suspicions of Mr. Whitcher by Kate Summerscale
Best Short Story:
"The Night Things Changed" by Dana Cameron, Wolfsbane & Mistletoe
"Killing Time" by Jane Cleland, Alfred Hitchock Mystery Magazine
November 2008
"Dangerous Crossing" by Carla Coupe, Chesapeake Crimes 3
"Skull & Cross Examination"by Toni Kelner, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine February2008
"A Nice Old Guy" by Nancy Pickard, Ellery Queen Mystery MagazineAugust 2008
The Agatha Awards honor the "traditional mystery." The award is named after Agatha Christie to honor books like hers. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries that: contain no explicit sex,contain no excessive gore or gratuitous violence,usually feature an amateur detective,take place in a confined setting and contain characters who know one another. Novels and stories featuring police officers and private detectives may qualify for the awards, but materials generally classified as "hard-boiled" are not appropriate.The 2008 Agatha Awards will be given for materials first published in the United States by a living author during the calendar year 2008 (January 1-December 31), either in hardcover, as a paperback original, or e-published by an e-publishing firm.

2009 Lincoln Prize

Two books are sharing the 2009 Lincoln Prize, awarded by the Lincoln and Soldiers Institute at Gettysburg College for "the finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln or the American Civil War soldier or a subject relating to their era."
The winners are Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson and Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy and the Civil War by Craig L. Symonds. McPherson won the Lincoln Prize in 1998 for For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, and Symonds was a finalist in 1993. Each author wins $25,000 and a bronze cast of Lincoln.

Edgar Allan Poe 200th

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth. New books celebrating his mastery of storytelling are: Poe: A Life Cut Short by Peter Ackroyd, On a Raven's Wing ed. by Stuart M. Kaminsky, and In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales by Edgar Allan Poe and essays by Jeffrey Deaver, Nelson DeMille and others, ed. by Michael Connelly. In a recent interview, Michael Connelly discusses the book and his own work. Connelly talks about his novel The Poet, which he says "is completely influenced by Poe. As I explain in my In the Shadow of the Master essay, the novel was a means of literary homage and theft. Several lines of Poe’s poetry were used as clues in the book. They were beautiful and eerie: “I dwelt alone in the world of moan.” Until these lines are revealed late in the book as coming from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe, I got the credit for them! It was wonderful." Connelly's next novel, The Scarecrow, is coming out in May 2009. Reporter Jack McEvoy and FBI Agent Rachel Walling are reunited for the first time since The Poet.

2009 Edgar Award Nominations Announced

The Mystery Writers of America has announced the nominations for its annual Edgar Awards. The winners will be announced during the 63rd Annual Edgar® Awards Banquet to be held on Thursday April 30, 2009.
BEST NOVEL:
Missing by Karin Alvtegen; Blue Heaven by C.J. Box ; Sins of the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno; The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes;The Night Following by Morag Joss; Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz .
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR:
The Kind One by Tom Epperson; Sweetsmoke by David Fuller; The Foreigner by Francie Lin; Calumet City by Charlie Newton; A Cure for Night by Justin Peacock.
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL:
The Prince of Bagram Prison by Alex Carr; Money Shot by Christa Faust; Enemy Combatant by Ed Gaffney; China Lake by Meg Gardiner; The Cold Spot by Tom Piccirilli.
BEST FACT CRIME:
For The Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder that Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz; American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum; Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It To The Revolution by T.J. English; The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Hans van Meegeren by Jonathan Lopez; The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale.
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL:
African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study by Frankie Y. Bailey; Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories by Leonard Cassuto; Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction by David Geherin; The Rise of True Crime by Jean Murley; Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories by Dr. Harry Lee Poe.

2008 National Book Critics Circle Awards

Fiction Finalists:
Roberto Bolaño, 2666.
Marilynne Robinson, Home.
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project.
M. Glenn Taylor, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart.
Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kittredge.
Autobiography Finalists:
Rick Bass, Why I Came West.
Helene Cooper, The House On Sugar Beach.
Honor Moore, The Bishop’s Daughter.
Andrew X. Pham, The Eaves Of Heaven.
Ariel Sabar, My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq.
Biography Finalists:
Paula J. Giddings, Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching.
Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family In An American Century.
Patrick French, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul.
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.
Brenda Wineapple, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Nonfiction Finalists:
Dexter Filkins, The Forever War.
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the Civil War.
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side.
Allan Lichtman, White Protestant Nation.
George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776.
Poetry Finalists:
August Kleinzahler, Sleeping It Off in Rapid City.
Juan Felipe Herrera, Half the World in Light.
Devin Johnston, Sources.
Pierre Martory (translated by John Ashbery), The Landscapist.
Brenda Shaughnessy, Human Dark with Sugar.
Criticism Finalists:
Richard Brody, Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life Of Jean-Luc Godard.
Vivian Gornick, The Men in My Life.
Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds.
Reginald Shepherd, Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry.
Seth Lerer, Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History: Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter.
The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974 at the Algonquin, is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization consisting of some 700 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns. It is managed by a 24-member all-volunteer board of directors.

Best Selling Author Steve Berry @Warren Newport Public Library

Steve Berry, the creator of the Cotton Malone thrillers, will be at the Warren Newport Public Library next Thursday,February 5, at 7:00 p.m. His books, including his current best seller, The Charlemagne Pursuit, will be available for purchase and signing.

Pulitzer Winner Novelist John Updike Dead

John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, died Tuesday January 27. He was prolific, creating more than 50 books, including novels, short stories, criticism, and a memoir. Updike won many literary prizes, including two Pulitzers, for Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at Rest. A collection of essays, Hugging the Shore, received the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. In 2003, Updike received the National Medal for Humanities at the White House. His two series,the "Bech" and the "Rabbit" books, are his most known. His Witches of Eastwick (1984), about three 20th-century sorceresses, was made into a successful film by George Miller, starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. His last 2 books were Terrorist, about an angry young American Muslim who becomes involved in a plot to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel and The Widows of Eastwick, a sequel to his best selling Witches of Eastwick. Of his writing, Updike once commented that his aim was to "give the mundane its beautiful due".

Oscar Nominations Go to Films Adapted From Books

Oscar nominations have been awarded to several films adapted from books. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was nominated for best picture, best director (David Fincher), best actor (Brad Pitt), best supporting actress (Taraji P. Henson) and best adapted screenplay. Slumdog Millionaire, based upon Vikas Swarup's novel Q&A, was nominated for best picture, best director (Danny Boyle) and best adapted screenplay. The Reader, based upon Bernhard Schlink's novel, was nominated for best picture, best director (Stephen Daldry), best actress (Kate Winslet) and best adapted screenplay. Revolutionary Road, based upon the novel by Richard Yates, was nominated for best supporting actor (Michael Shannon), best art direction and best costume design.