Sharon A. Crawford mugshot
The title might be an oxymoron, but to rephrase it – dead people populate crime fiction and non fiction, but the genre and all its books are popular and prolific in Canada. The annual Arthur Ellis Awards banquet held annually by Crime Writers of Canada proves that.
We packed them in last evening in the great hall of The Arts and Letters Club in downtown Toronto. We ate, drank, chatted, and then the awards were presented. Unlike the Oscars and the like awards presentation aren’t drawn out, boring, and exaggerated. A bookseller did the duties of handing envelopes and award statuettes, the CWC president spoke briefly at the beginning and then called each presenter in turn. The presenter read the authors shortlisted and then named the winner (and no Oscar wrong name fiasco). The winner, if present, came up on stage, did their thank you and then posed for a few seconds for a photo with their presenter.
The latter got a bit funny when the CWC member taking photographs – Rick Blechta won the Lou Alin Award for Best Novella. But Cathy Ace, the CWC president stepped up to the camera and took the photo.
There was also some humour from all and the winners’ thank yous were interesting and diverse.
Donna Morrisey won for best novel. And no, I’m not going to list all the winners. You can check that out at the Crime Writers of Canada website.You will also see what the award statute looks like. But you won’t be able to make its hands and feet work. One of the winners showed us how at the banquet Can’t do that with an Oscar. I am also not putting a graphic of Arthur at the top for copyright reasons, so you have to contend with my mug. At least I was there.
And for avid crime readers – no matter where you live – you can receive a quarterly electronic copy of Cool Canadian Crime which lists their members newest books coming out. Just scroll down the page to “Books”. Warning, commercial – sort of here – my newest Beyond mystery Beyond Faith comes out this fall, so if I remember to send out the info in time, it should be listed in Cool Canadian Crime later this year.
And when you check out CWC home page, you get a selection of new books releases by members floating across the screen. Check out the bios for what we all do between the book covers. Murder and mayhem and much more.
And we can get away with crime (between the book covers).
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
Sharon A. Crawford author 