ABNA finalists for 2012

The three general fiction and three young adult fiction finalists in this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest were announced yesterday. Congratulations to all six of you. Enjoy the next two weeks as Amazon customers read your excerpts and vote. And good luck to you all.

The finalists in the general fiction category are: Alan Averill (The Beautiful Land), Charles Kelly (Grace Humiston and the Vanishing), and Brian Reevers (A Chant of Love and Lamentation).

You will notice all the finalists in this category are men. But women, keep the faith because the finalists in the young adult category are: Cassandra Griffin (Dreamcatchers), Rebecca Phillips (Out of Nowhere), and Regina Sirois (On Little Wings).

And you noticed only females made the finalist in YA this year.

Not sure who I favor in general fiction. Haven't read any of them. (And they had all better be better than my entry this year.) But I have a favorite in YA, though I won't say who.

We will just have to see.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Black on Black in Black

I entered the 81st Annual Writer's Digest competition today with a short mystery story called Black on Black in Black. (If you don't understand the title, I'm sorry. It's a black-thang.)

A friend at The Philadelphia Tribune asked me a couple of years ago to write a mystery with her as the main character and we actually came up with the name for the protagonist together. But that was the extent of her contribution.

It's a murder mystery that I started two years ago but didn't get around to finishing it until last fall. It's not long -- just over 2,000 words -- but has a nice feel to it.

I had forgotten about this competition, which costs to enter but has really nice prizes. There are 10 categories, including magazine feature articles, rhyming and non-rhyming poems, movie scripts, and short stories. The maximum word word is about 4,000 words.

They offer cash prizes for first through 10th place in each of the categories and a $3,000 cash prize and a trip to New York for the Grand Prize winner, who is selected from all entries. Hard to see how I could win that but you can never tell. And you can't win if you don't enter. Since I entered, I could possibly win.

I haven't entered this contest in several years. But in 2007, a got an honorable mention in the television/movie script category for my screenplay, Loss of Consortium. But I decided to enter this year as part of my goal of entering more contests, and writing more short fiction. This is the second contest I have entered this year, after ABNA, and I am working on one final edit of my novel, An Untidy Affair, for a competition next month. No final decision on other competitions or contests but I'm looking around. There are lots to choose from. I just have to find the ones that are a good fit for me and for them.

So that's it for today. I have to get back to editing. But thanks for reading and I will see you next time.

Nervous Nellie

I'm going to try to make this one of my last posts for a while on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. But ABNA is gearing up at the moment and the first round results will be announced tomorrow.

There are three components to an entry in ABNA -- the pitch, an excerpt and the complete manuscript. In the first round, the only thing that is judged is the 300-word pitch. It's like a sales pitch that needs to include the main character, the plot and some really good writing. (It's kind of like the description you see on book jacket covers.) But since 80 percent of the entries are eliminated in the first round, more than a good story and good writing are required.

Luck will play a major factor.

Some of the past contestants estimate that luck plays up to 50 percent in whether you advance out of the first round/pitch stage and into the excerpt stage, which is the second round. If the reviewer is having a bad day or doesn't care for your genre, you likely could be bounced.

Just today on one of the ABNA community discussion boards I was reading the pitch of someone whom is active in the ABNA contestant community and who revised their pitch for a fantasy novel several times before it was entered. It is still a complete mess. I had no idea what the story was about and, worst of all, I didn't care. If I was a judge, I'd eliminate them immediately, although the book itself may be quite good (although I doubt it). But then, I don't care for fantasy novels. If I were judging, it would have a hard time with me anyway.

All that is to say I am a Nervous Nellie waiting for the first round results tomorrow, which should come in by early afternoon. I keep dreaming of advancing but know realistically the odds are against me.

All that said, below is my pitch. Read and send me a comment if you'd like. And above all, thanks for reading.

___

Rachel Edelstein is a rarity - it's not easy being black AND Jewish in America - but she has developed her own unique survival instincts. When Nazis come to kidnap her and she finds out her boyfriend is an Israeli intelligence agent, her life depends on trusting those instincts - and in trusting the right people.

The person she trusts most is her grandfather, Julius Edelstein, but he has suddenly disappeared. As Rachel searches for him, she learns Julius is the surviving member in a financial agreement called a tontine, which was created with millions of Deutsche Marks stolen from the Nazis during World War II. The men planned to use the dividends from the tontine to fund a resistance movement and ultimately support Jewish charities for the rest of their lives.

But the Nazis have long memories. Now, seven decades later, the descendants of a former Gestapo chief who escaped judgment are still looking for Julius. And they will stop at nothing to recover the money, including murder or kidnapping. That puts Rachel, who doesn't know why Julius is missing, in their cross hairs.

After the bad guys attempt to kidnap her hoping she will lead them to Julius, Rachel must use her instincts to determine whom to trust - her boyfriend, who lied to her about being an Israeli agent, or the black New York City police detective with a sketchy past who is investigating her grandfather's disappearance.

The wrong choice could lead to more chaos - and more dead bodies.

THE LAST TONTINE SURVIVOR is written in a style similar to that of authors Jeffrey Archer or Jack Higgins, and its target market is educated readers over the age of 30 who enjoy mystery and suspense, and a bit of history.

Discover Mystery contest

Poisoned Pen Press, a small but well-thought-of indie publisher, has a new contest this year for unpublished authors. It is called the Discover Mystery contest and I have decided to enter AN UNTIDY AFFAIR.

The mystery manuscript must be between 60,000 and 90,000 words, and the winner will be offered a publishing contract with a small ($1,000) advance. The submission deadline is April 30, with the winner being announced one month later on May 31.

Though I like Poisoned Pen Press, I have never submitted a manuscript there before, mostly, I think, out of fear of rejection. The publisher prides itself on the fact that it accepts and considers authors without representation. And I know a local author who has had several of her mysteries published through Poisoned Pen and has enjoyed some success them.

As you may remember, I originally wrote AFFAIR in November 2009 during National Novel Writing Month and it has gone through numerous rewrites. I think I am up to 12. Because it is polished is one of the reasons I decided to submit it. That and the fact that I have another work currently in the Amazon contest. The Poisoned Pen rules state I can't enter the same mss to another publisher at the same time it is being considered in the Poisoned Pen contest.

So this is two contests this year -- Poisoned Pen and Amazon -- with different novels. Way to go, me!!

One of my stated goals was to enter four contests this year for novels or short stories and so I am nearly half way there. Plus I am looking around for other contests to enter. Both AFFAIR and THE LAST TONTINE SURVIVOR are good works which are completed and edited (as best they can be by an non-professional editor). So I am prepared to shop them around and hope for the best.

Your prayers would also be helpful.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Dashiell Hammett

Today is the birthday of Samuel Dashiell Hammett, who was born in 1894 and died on Jan. 10, 1961.

Hammett is one of my favorite fiction authors. His hard-boiled detective novels are full of interesting, three-dimensional characters who are both cynical and romantic. My favorites are Nick and Nora Charles from THE THIN MAN. The novel was published in 1934 and there were six movies based on Nick and Nora, starting with "The Thin Man", also in 1934.

He only wrote five novels -- all in five years with THE THIN MAN being the last -- but also wrote a host of short stories. The other novel for which he is well known today is THE MALTESE FALCON, which was his third novel and which introduced the detective character Sam Spade. However, his first novel, RED HARVEST, published in 1929, was listed by Time magazine several years ago as one of the top 100, English-language novels in the 20th Century.

In many ways, Hammett's character Sam Spade inspired David Blaise, the protagonist in my 2009 novel, AN UNTIDY AFFAIR. I read THE MALTESE FALCON for the umpteenth time in 2008 and while the timing and settings of Hammett's novel and my novel are different, as I wrote I often thought of what Spade's office would look like and of the characters on the street he would meet.

Blaise is a struggling detective and a bit of a loner. Solitude is probably his greatest vice.

Blaise is not hard-drinking and heavy smoking like what you find in Hammett's work -- or in his life. But I think those vices are more a product of Hammett's time. Given the traits of his characters, it is hard believe they would have as strong a cultural impact or have the lasting appeal if they were written that way today.

Hammett was a veteran of two world wars. And though jailed in the 1950s for failing to name names during the Red Scare, he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The cemetery is large and I generally just go to the Kennedy gravesite because it is the easiest to find. But this summer when we are vacationing in the area, I plan to visit Hammett's grave.

Thanks for reading and, like me, keep writing.

Verisimilitude -- "Spread it and stamp it out."

In the last couple of weeks, I have been paying much more attention to the discussion/argument over literary fiction vs. genre fiction. And the more I read about the subject, the more I am reminded of one of my favorite episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s. The episode is called "I'm No Henry Walden" and ran in the second season of the show, which ran five years. (I know all this because I have all five seasons on DVD.) The show is a classic and quite funny.

In the episode, Rob and Laura Petrie (Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore) are invited to a party of literary and intellectual snobs to raise money for foundation of poet laureate Henry Walden. They don't know why they were invited, though Rob is a top television writer. They are clearly out of their element.

They are introduced to Felicia Fellows and anti-existentialist Yale Sampson, played brilliantly by Carl Reiner. In explaining his views on the decline of modern culture, Yale (whom Rob once mistakenly calls "Mr. Harvard") blathers some incoherent mumbo-jumbo about the "plethora of the mundane" and "banality" and ends, to the absolute delight of Fellows, by saying, "Surely you can see the danger!"

The TV audience laughs, and Rob and Laura have no idea what he is talking about. None of us do. The rest goes like this --

Rob: What can one man do?

Laura: Yes, or one woman?

Felicia: We can spread the word!

Rob: Uh, what word is it?

Yale: Verisimilitude.

Rob: Verisimilitude. (Smiling). It's a good word to spread.

Yale: (Shocked, indignant) To spread, sir, to stamp out!

Rob: Well, that's what I meant. Spread it and stamp it out.


I always laugh through that part. The episode is probably the reason my 16-year-old daughter learned the meaning of verisimilitude about six years ago.

In the episode, there is another brief exchange I love after Yale walks out of the camera shot.

Felicia: Hasn't he a MARVELOUS mind?

Rob: (Mocking) Marvelous.

Felicia: (Thinking) He has the gift and ability to say things that, uh . . .

Rob: (Pausing while he thinks) . . . uh, seem vague but are in reality meaningless.


The episode reminds me of the gap people see between literary writing and genre writing, which is intended for a wider audience. There is a same sort of intellectual snobbery in the discussion.

Literary types, it seems, often look down their noses at writing for a mainstream audience, as if such writing lacks intellectual and artistic merit. I have a very dear friend whom, I think, berates John Grisham for that very reason. His thinking, apparently, is that Grisham is a hack because he isn't writing the next FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.

But Grisham writers legal thrillers and is quite good at it. They are generally entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking.

The idea is that genre writing isn't serious enough or weighty enough to withstand the test of time.

That is intellectual snobbery at its worst. (In the TV episode, Sampson wrote a book called DEATH FEARS ME, while a strange-looking poet wrote LAVENDER LOLLIPOPS and POINT ME TO THE MOON. The show made snobbery a well-deserved target.) One merely needs to consider Dashiell Hammett -- I particularly love THE THIN MAN -- or the works of Agatha Christie to see great writing that withstands the test of time.

I have nothing against literary fiction. Some of my best friends read literary fiction. (That was an attempt to lighten the mood here.) Generally, though, when I want intellectual heft, I read non-fiction. But I hate intellectual artistic snobbery in fiction. I love genre fiction, particular mysteries and thrillers. They can be serious and thought-provoking. And a lot of it will stand the test of time.

And perhaps my mystery fiction will, too.

Thanks for reading me today.

And keep reading and writing fiction, whether it is literary or mainstream. It all has value.