Well, I've been pretty quiet the last year. In January, I referenced a "secret assignment" that was keeping me busy that I could reveal later when the statute of limitations...I mean, non-disclosure agreement term...was over.
Now I know many of you probably thought I was on loan to a foreign power ally for some intense undercover work to preserve the safety and sanctity of the world or training intergalactic starfighters for a vast rebellion against the evil overlords of a newfound galaxy. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this was MUCH, MUCH more important...I was an Edgar Award judge for the Mystery Writers of America's famous contest.
(Blatant self promotion for the
MWA Southwest Chapter,
our regional group)
Even better, I was a judge for the Best First Novel division of the contest. That means that I got to read some of the new talent popping up on the radar of the mystery genre landscape. For some, it was their first novel of any kind ever; for others it was their first mystery novel. Needless to say, there was an abundant of talent that I was exposed to.
All in all, I believe we read between 70 and 80 novels. If I was good at math, I could go back and tell you for sure, but we received more than one copy of some entries and also some entries that were not eligible for some reason (not an American author, not their first mystery novel, etc.), so the math gets beyond my computational skills pretty quickly. It was a great year to be a reader. But there a few hardships along the way.
The hardest part of it all was that, according to the rules, we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement that lasted until the winners were announced at the annual awards banquet in April. Wow! I hadn't figured how hard that would be until I could not put being an Edgar Award judge on my resume! Nor could I tell my bosses WHY I wasn't available for extra classes or committee assignments or any of those other things academia likes you to do on top of a regular teaching load. And if I were to apply for a new job somewhere, I wouldn't have been able to mention it, even if it might have been a tipping point in the decision process. OKAY, that was hard, folks.
Another issue was that the contest went from January 2018 to December 2018 (Ya think, being an annual award, Wilhite?). We got a couple of books right off the bat in January and more came in during the spring and summer. Lucky me, four or five or ten brand new mysteries always sitting by the bed or by the desk or on the passenger's seat of the truck..or next to my plate at breakfast (and lunch AND dinner). Aww, yeah, that's a pretty great place to be. I'd read one and then not have that void of "Well, what am I going to read next?"
Then fall hit...and the books kept coming, but more of them. I'm a pro; I can handle it. The reading started earlier in the morning and lasted later at night. Make that into the NEXT morning. Students insisted I grade their papers, the ungrateful whelps. My spouse actually thought I should occasionally TALK to her! Friends quit inviting me...anywhere. But it would all be over after Christmas, right?
NO! The books had to be PUBLISHED in 2018, right up until New Years. And then, publishers had to get them sent in, and they finally got to us. Last ones actually showed up in the mail in January.
And so the winnowing began! From 70-plus books down to a finalist list of five. Emails back and forth from all three coasts and in between until finally, we had our tally. THAT was almost as hard as having to keep quiet about being a judge for a year. But we did it.
It was exhausting, exhilarating, interesting, and I'm sure a lot of other "-ing" words. Would I do it again? Absolutely! Preferably AFTER I retire.
In case you haven't seen them anywhere else, here's the list of finalists from our category:
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
( winner in red)
A Knife in the Fog by Bradley Harper (Seventh Street Books)
The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut (HarperCollins Publishers – Ecco)
The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs (Simon & Schuster – Touchstone)
Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin (HarperCollins Publishers – Ecco)
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Penguin Random House – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
For the winners in all the other categories, you can check the MWA website at
https://mysterywriters.org/mwa-announces-the-2019-edgar-nominations/