Writing Awards Series ~ The Edgars

A wife, mother, and grandma, Yvonne Anderson lives in rural Ohio. She's a former legal secretary, currently a professional Virtual Assistant, and writes a daily Bible study blog. She creates fiction just for fun, but sometimes entertains fantasies about real remuneration.

By Yvonne Anderson

Do you like puzzles? See if you can tell what genre I'm thinking of.

Here are the clues:

*The longest continuously running play in the history of theater is in this classification.

*This kind of TV series was the first in America to star an African-American.

*Twenty-three of the 100 highest-earning films in history were this kind of movie, and films of this type received 62 nominations for major Academy awards from 1990 through 1998.

*Critics and historians alike consider the first "strong" female role model for young girls in fiction was first introduced in this genre in 1930.

*There were 1500 new books in this category published in the U.S. in 1998.

Have you figured it out? Elementary, my dear reader – the answer is "mystery," of course.

(Concerning the above: Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap debuted on November 25, 1952 and is still playing in London's West End. The TV series I Spy ran from 1965 through 1978, and starred Bill Cosby as a secret agent. The first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock, published in 1930, featured a sports-car-driving girl with a quick wit who faced dangerous situations with courage and tenacity. The perennially-teenaged Nancy Drew continues to entertain her readers with new adventures each year.)

Who doesn't love a good mystery? Organized in 1945, Mystery Writers of America (early motto: "Crime Does Not Pay – Enough") bestows the Edgar Allan Poe Awards (alias: "the Edgars") for the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film and theater published or produced in the last year.

The award, a ceramic statue of Poe, was first given in two categories: Best First Novel (the 1946 winner was Watchful at Night by Julius Fast) and Best Mystery Movie (winner: the movie Murder, My Sweet, with awards going to John Paxton for the screenplay; Raymond Chandler, author of Farewell My Lovely, on which the movie was based; and Dick Powell, for his portrayal of a private detective).

Since then, additional categories have been introduced. The Edgars now also include Best Mystery Novel; Best Paperback Original; Best Fact Crime; Best Critical/Biographical; Best Short Story Mystery; Best Young Adult Mystery; Best Juvenile Kids Mystery; Best Mystery TV Episode; Best Mystery TV Feature; and Best Mystery Play.

The award, of course, is named for Edgar Allan Poe, patron saint of the MWA and originator of the first mystery story. With its publication in Graham's Magazine in 1841, Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" introduced readers to a new genre, and the style took off like a bandit. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, the most famous literary character in history, in a serialized novel, A Study in Scarlet, published in The Strand magazine in 1887, and the world has been hooked on mystery ever since. Mystery books come second only to romance in number sold. Readers purchased over 60 million mystery/detective books in 1997, for 11.3% of the popular fiction market.

Best Novel Edgar winners include Jess Walter, for Citizen Vince in 2006; Jan Burke, for Bones in 2000; Mary Willis Walker, The Red Scream in 1995; William Bayer, Peregrine, 1982; Ken Follett, The Eye of the Needle, 1979; Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal, 1972; and John le Carre, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, 1965.

Other Edgar-winning works include the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dragnet, Colombo, and Law & Order; musicals, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and City of Angels; the documentary, The Thin Blue Line; and films such as Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, Hopscotch and Les Diaboliques.

If you're a writer aspiring to place this little ceramic statue on your shelf, there's no mystery how to go about it.

First, of course, you must write a dynamite mystery story. It must be published the same year it is submitted to the judges. And it must explode in a judge's hands within the first fifty pages – hundreds of novels are submitted, and the judges grow bored quickly.

A committee for each category is chosen by the Awards Committee chairman, who tries to reach a balance of gender, geography and genre. Each subcommittee is comprised of five judges, all active members of the AFW. The only exception is the committee deciding on Best Novel. Because of the sheer volume of submissions in that category, the workload is distributed among eight.

Books, short stories, television shows, films, and plays are submitted to each of the designated judges throughout the calendar year. Although publishers and producers are solicited to submit books, short stories, films, scripts, and videotapes, any writer may submit a work to a committee. The names and addresses of the committee members are available from AFW Headquarters.

As the work comes in, the judges read (or watch) and take notes on each submission. The committee chair checks that all members have received all the work, and at the end of the year, the chair determines who the five nominees and the single winner will be.

When the chair sends the list of nominees to AFW Headquarters, the list is checked to make sure all the criteria have been met. Nominees are announced at the February meeting of the national board, and MWA sends press releases to the media and publishers/producers. Strict secrecy is maintained by the committees so that all nominees may have two months in the spotlight.

True to any good suspense story, press releases announcing the winners are prepared in advance, but are not sent out until after the annual awards banquet in April. At the ceremony, each committee chair plays with the audience until the right dramatic moment arrives to announce the winner of the current year's Edgar.

(I'm thinking of a story right now... mystery writers convene at the banquet... amidst the polite banter, nerves are taut as a violin string... a love triangle figures in somewhere, of course... and just as the chairman slits the envelope, a shot rings out and the leading contender, rising to accept his award even before the name is announced, falls across the table... I've even got a title: And The Winner is... Dead!)

Okay, so maybe I'll never see an Edgar on my bookshelf (unless I cut out the picture and frame it). But we can all watch the results of the awards this year, and applaud the talented writers that keep us on the edges of our seats.