Assuming you love reading and that you love reading mysteries in particular, could you read 600 of them in one year? Could you then select the top five? The top one?
This was the task of eight judges sitting on the Best Novel panel in order to award the most prestigious prize for a crime fiction writer: The Edgar Allan Poe Award.
The annual presentation of the Edgars, as they are more commonly known, is the task of the Mystery Writers of America, an organization for published authors of mystery, thriller and suspense novels. The annual award event has been a staple since 1954. Edgars are also awarded for, among others, Best First Novel, Best Paperback/E-book Original, Best Crime Non Fiction, Best TV episode, and Best Short Story.
This year, because I have time on my hands, I took a closer look at who was nominated, and how, and why.
Time On My Hands
If you read this blog on any sort of regular basis, you know why I have time on my hands: A couple of weeks ago, I was ready to send my completed manuscript out into the world. This week, it is out there — in the hands of A.N.Other (read: agent.)
This leaves me with some time on my hands. Yeh, yeh, I know. I should be working on my next novel, and it’s okay, I have an outline and some chapters written, but excuse me if I take a breather this week!!!
I already wrote on this blog about using my “free” time to sign up for a tennis singles tournament, and there will be more about how that’s working out for me at a later date. This week, however, I needed a cerebral activity as well. So, when I accessed the Mystery Writers of America website and saw the top five nominations for the various Edgar awards, I wanted to know more. For example: where did the nominees come from? How many entrants in the field for Best Novel?
Jaw-Dropping Stats
It took me a while to pick up my jaw off the floor. When I clicked on submissions for Best Novel, I scrolled down an alphabetical list that seemed to go on forever. In fact, there were 600 submissions in the Best Novel Category.
How are they submitted? Any author, or author’s publisher can submit a traditionally published novel (self-published works are not eligible for Edgar Award consideration.) When I scrolled down the list of 600, I recognized just 24 titles (including Laura Lippman’s Sunburn, Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Trust Me, Karin Slaughter’s Pieces of Her, and Peter Blauner’s Sunrise Highway) which I had actually read and reviewed on Goodreads. None of which happened to make the Best Novel nominations list.
So, who judges and places them on a list of just five nominees? Well, the whole process is shrouded in secrecy. Judges from prior awards years have signed non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them from discussing (and from being quizzed) about the process. No-one will say a word about it. Trust me, I tried to find out.
Edgar’s Clues
However, there are clues on the MWA website. In a 2013 article, MWA states that all judges are selected from MWA active status members like myself (who must be published authors.)
“The awards are given out by working writers to recognize excellence in the field,” states the article on the Edgars judging process. Last year, the Grand Awards Chair read out the list of judges for the 2018 Best Novel at the banquet where the awards are presented. I didn’t catch all their names because it was on a YouTube snippet but one of them was Julie Tollefson, best known for her short stories. She wrote a very brief snippet about her role as a judge in a blog that was posted on the day of the Edgars.
According to the MWA article, there were sixty-eight judges to read 2,000 books in the various categories in 2013. The Grand Awards Chair selects the chairperson for each of the various other categories, then the chairpersons in turn select their panel of judges. Usually it’s a panel of four other judges — except in the Best Novel category which has, at least, eight judges, because of the volume of mysteries submitted.
Okay, so eight judges, but does each one have to read all 600 novels????
Listen Up All Writers!!!!
The most important couple of sentences for authors in this MWA article on the Edgars judging process stated as follows:
“For a Best Novel judge to read every single book, for instance, he or she could read one book every day and still fall well short. It is a simple fact of life that certain accommodations have to be made — books that don’t engage within the first fifty pages are often put down.”
There you have it, authors/writers: You’ve got to grab judges’ attentions in 50 pages or less. And remember, you will usually have less time/fewer pages in which to grab the attention of a reader. Judges, being published authors themselves, are likely to give award entries more of a leeway than any purchaser in a bookstore or online.
The judges each compile his/her Top Ten list as they go along. Then, collate those into one Top Ten list in the first round of voting. Then, each judge again reviews the ten that made that list, then votes for five. And, ultimately from that list picks his/her winner.
So, Drum Roll…
The five nominees for Best Novel this year are: The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard; House Witness by Mike Lawson (the 12th novel in the Joe DeMarco series); A Gambler’s Jury by Victor Methos; Down The River Unto The Sea by Walter Mosley; Only To Sleep (A Philip Marlowe novel) by Lawrence Osborne, and A Treacherous Curse ( a historical mystery) by Deanna Raybourn.
I already had The Liar’s Girl in my Kindle Library, but had not yet read it. So, I accessed my Amazon account and bought the novels of the other four contenders. I’ll read them, review them and then pick my #1 choice — and see how I measure up to the pick of the Edgar judges. I’ll know the answer to that right around the time I’ll know how I did in my singles tennis tournament!
See? Didn’t I say I had (too) much time on my hands?
I tried to read Liar’s Girl as an ARC but had to DNF. Way too boring. Surprised it made the cut.
Hi Eldon, that’s interesting to hear. I heard so much about it. That’s why I had it in my Kindle library. It’s going to be my first read of the six nominees, so I’m curious if I feel the same way about this one?
Yup. Those first fifty pages have to grab my attention. In fact, I will put down a book after as little as one chapter if the story does not grab me. Granted, I have a pretty short attention span and get bored with long flowing descriptions, no matter how well-written, or too much navel-gazing by the narrator. I need conflict and tension.
Fifty pages is really a lot of pages. And, time is really valuable — especially if you’re trying to write a book of your own, right???