What a great week to be a Midnight Ink
writer. Actually, it’s way more than just a week but there has been an
avalanche of good news crashing down recently.
Left Coast Crime conference, a gathering
to celebrate mysteries that takes place in a different western city each year,
announced finalists in their contest. What fun to see Midnight Ink writers on
that illustrious list. Darrell James and Beth Groundwater are nominees in The
Rocky category, which is a book set in the geographic area covered by Left
Coast Crime. Jess Lourey is nominated for an award in the humorous category,
The Lefty. And Catriona McPherson has a book in the Bruce Alexander Memorial
Mystery, for historical novels.
. 
Can you say, “Wow!”
And then it gets better.
Kathleen Earnst recently won the LOVEY
in the historical category at Love Is Murder in Chicago.
And drum roll, please…
G.M. Malliet (three times now) and Catriona
McPherson are up for Agatha Awards given by Malice Domestic.
Alan Orloff had an Agatha nomination in 2010. 
And last year, Darrell James won a Left Coast Crime award, The Eureka, for a
first novel.
Now it’s going to get dicey because I’m
going to forget a whole ton of other good news. But let me mention that Vicki
Doudera got a great review from the world’s snarkiest review site. I know Alice
Loweecey and Lois Winston have posted some terrific reviews, as well.
I’m tickled for all the recipients. I
imagine their glow and it makes me plum happy for them. I’ve met most of the
writers I just mentioned and to a person, they are warm, funny, smart, generous
and all around amazing specimens. I can only imagine the others are equally
superior humans.
But, as Ayn Rand was ever-so-fond of
saying, “There is no altruism.”
While I’m truly happy for these
M’Inkers, I’m downright giddy for me.
My father always told me, “You’re known
by the company you keep.” Yes, he was a wise man, but I don’t think he made
that up.
I would be surprised if I ever win a
prestigious award and Kirkus may always hate me. But someone, somewhere, at one
time,(Terri) thought I wrote a book good enough to be included on the roster
with these stellar writers.
That thought swells my chest more than
the Miraculous Uplift bra I got from Victoria’s Secret.
By the time of my next Ink Spot post, my
first book in the Nora Abbott Mystery series will have launched. Readers may
love it or hate it. But for right now, for this brief moment, I get to revel in
the success of my publisher and the fine writers they’ve accumulated and
believe I am one of them.
I am just so darned proud of Midnight
Ink and all these folks. (And sorta proud of me, too.)
"[McPherson is a] master of psychological thrillers."
