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Learning about awards

It is excit­ing to have my new nov­el, Catch You Lat­er, Trai­tor short-list­ed for the Edgar, the Mys­tery Writ­ers of Amer­i­ca award for the best mys­tery for young read­ers, 2015.

Edgar nominees 2016

It was in 1975 that my first nov­el, No More Mag­ic, was sim­i­lar­ly nom­i­nat­ed. Much younger, to be sure, I did not quite know what to make of it all. I was invit­ed to a ban­quet in which, Acad­e­my Award style, the enve­lope is opened, and the win­ner announced. My atti­tude was one of faint amusement.

No More MagicI brought along my twin sis­ter, Emi­ly Lei­der, who had recent­ly pub­lished a vol­ume of poems. I assumed I would know no one.  But as we min­gled about I rec­og­nized some of the grand names of mys­tery writ­ers. Indeed the keynote speak­er was the great Argen­tine writer, Jorge Luis Borges.

What, I asked myself, am I doing here?

We sat at a round table. I turned to the man sit­ting next to me, intro­duced myself, and he told me his name, which alas, I’ve forgotten.

“What’s this all about?” I asked, with, I sus­pect, a touch of youth­ful disdain.

He eyed me bale­ful­ly. “What brings you here, pal?” he said.

“My nov­el has been nominated.”

“That’s pret­ty swell. How many have you written?”

“It’s my first.”

Catch You Later, TraitorHe reached into his jack­et pock­et and pulled out his busi­ness card which was in the shape of a book mark, a long book mark. One side had his name, address, phone num­ber. On the oth­er side was a list of the nov­els he had writ­ten. He tapped that side with his cracked fin­ger­nail. “I’ve writ­ten forty five nov­els, son, and I’ve nev­er been nom­i­nat­ed.  You just might let your­self enjoy the moment.”

I sat back, prop­er­ly chastened.

At anoth­er moment an old­er, white-haired woman, who was bedecked in glit­ter­ing dia­monds (Oh, how I wish I could recall her name!) turned to my sis­ter. “What kind of mys­ter­ies do you write, dear?”

My sis­ter said, “I write poetry.”

The woman pressed her hands togeth­er in a prayer­ful atti­tude, bowed her head, and said, “We who write mere prose, must salute the poets.”

That night, my book didn’t win but I learned a lot.

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