Bloody Words Progress Report #2

BLOODY WORDS 2011 June 3-5, 2011 Victoria, BC

Bloody Words, Canada's foremost mystery conference for readers and writers, comes to the West Coast for the first time! Join us in Victoria, BC, June 3-5, 2011.

Guests of Honour:

International Guest of Honour: Tess Gerritsen, medical doctor-turned-author of 3 series (romantic suspense, medical thrillers, and the police procedurals made into the TV series Rizzoli and Iles)

Canadian Guest of Honour: Michael Slade, acclaimed author of the Specialx series and other crime/horror novels. Enjoy a blood-chilling 1940s radio play at Michael Slade's Shock Theatre (open to all conference attendees) and his Ghost Walk to some of Victoria's haunted sites (pre-registration required; details to be announced).

Special Guest of Honour: William Deverell, author of award-winning legal thrillers and creator of Street Legal. Deverell will be presented with a lifetime achievement award in recognition of his contributions to Canadian crime writing.

Registration Deadline

Registrations for Bloody Words 2011 already exceed half of our available banquet space, if you haven't signed up yet, REGISTER NOW.

Agent Interviews: Available slots are filling up fast. Act now.

Bony Pete Short Story Contest: Monday Magazine, Victoria's alternative newspaper, will publish the winning entry online, with a lead-in from the print edition. Entries must be postmarked no later than March 1, 2011. complete guidelines.

Manuscript Evaluations: Submissions must be postmarked by April 15, 2011. See the website for details.

Notes to Published Authors:

1. Programming Deadline: Programming is already underway. To be guaranteed consideration, you must register byMarch 1.

2. Bios and pix: If you wish to be on the program, please send a bio of 50-100 words and a black and white head shot (300 dpi, jpg or tiff ) to pam.barnsley@gmail.com NOW. Deadline is March 15.

3. Bumpf: Send 250 books, bookmarks, postcards, pens, other promotional items that will fit easily into goodie bags (no flat sheets) to Kay Stewart, #206-71 Gorge Road West, Victoria, BC V9A 1L9, postmarked no later than May 1. Material sent later may not make it into the bags.

4. Ads: Encourage your publisher to take out an ad in the program book or do it yourself byMarch 31. For information, email John Thornburn, Advertising Director, at chaosconsultants@shaw.ca.

5. Books: Dead Write Books, our conference dealer, will bring in books of published authors who are on the program. Self-published authors can arrange for Dead Write to handle your books. For queries, email whitedwarf@deadwrite.com.

Hotel Reservations: The conference block at Hotel Grand Pacific is already fully booked. However, the hotel will continue to accept BloodyWords bookings at the conference rate ($179 per night, single or double, plus tax) as long as non-harbourside rooms are available. Don't forget to mention BloodyWords when you make your reservation.

Arthur Ellis Awards Banquet June 2: the Hotel Grand Pacific. Come early and see the show. For information, consult the Crime Writers of Canada website: www.crimewriterscanada.com. For banquet tickets, email arthur_ellis_banquet@crimewriterscanada.com beginning April 1.

Kay Stewart and Lou Allin, Co-Chairs

Arthur Ellis Award Winners

The Arthur Ellis Awards took place on May 27th at Mysterious Yours Dinner Theatre in Toronto.

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Best Novel - Howard Shrier High Chicago

Best First Novel - Alan Bradley The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Best Non-Fiction - Terry Gould Murder Without Borders

Best Juvenile - Barbara Haworth-Attard Haunted

Best Crime Writing in French - Jean Lemieux Le mort du chemin des Arsene

Best Short Story - Dennis Richard Murphy "Prisoner in Paradise"

Best Unpublished First Crime Novel - Gloria Ferris The Corpse Flower

Congratulations to the winners! For a description of all short-listed books and short stories, visit our website

"On Being an Unhanged Arthur Finalist"

Guest Blogger Pam Gross Barnsley is a finalist for the Unhanged Arthur Award for the second time.

Now that we’re in the last, nail-biting weeks leading up to Crime Writers of Canada’s Best Unpublished Novel Award (the Unhanged Arthur), I’m trying to be all Zen about it. After all, this is my second year making it to the shortlist. Just breathe, Pam, let it go; your chances of winning are nil. Still, the odd fantasy manages to creep in when I’m supposed to be sleeping, flossing my teeth, listening to the CBC news, or earning a living. I can feel that Bony Pete statuette in my hands, count the sales to Kindle and Sony e-readers, action doll figures, movie rights, Oprah, the Giller and Guv General committees coming to their senses as they realize crime writing can be fine literature too; and I just know Bobby Hepditch will finally regret dumping me after the high school prom. Okay; being Zen ain’t easy.

But then writing a novel isn’t easy either. All of you fellow crime writers know this. The only thing harder than writing is getting published.

Contests can improve your chances of publication, and increase your sales once you are published. Just making it to the longlist is enough to get you a closer reading from agents and editors. So enter! And when you get longlisted or shortlisted, put it in the first line of your query letter.

Louise Penny entered the UK’s Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award and her unpublished novel, Still Life was shortlisted. She didn’t win, but making the shortlist garnered her attention from editors and agents and secured her an agent. Louise has gone on to write four more novels and win numerous awards. That first contest set her on her way.

Phyllis Smallman won the first ever CWC Unhanged Arthur and was published by McArthur and Co Publishers, who have just published the third novel in her Sherri Travers series. Phyllis was also shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger.

For unpublished crime writers there is also the St. Martin’s Minotaur/ Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition; again, the winner is considered for a publishing contract.

The Killer Nashville/ Claymore Dagger Award comes with a chance at publication with Avalon.

More information for each of these contests can be found on their websites. CWC and the UK’s CWA both offer valuable tips on how to give your manuscript the best chance of impressing the judges. Fees range from $35 to $50.

Last year, after my novel, This Cage of Bones, made the shortlist, I attended the CWC Awards ceremony in Ottawa, followed by the Bloody Words Conference, and I had a blast. It was wonderful to finally meet other writers whom I’d known online for years. I schmoozed like a campaigning politician, made some good connections in the writing biz, and hob-nobbed with sundry ink-stained wretches, Attila-the-Hun agents, media types and fans. I maybe should’ve been cut off after the third glass of wine when I pitched my novel to one of the waiters. But hey, he liked the idea of being an agent and said it would save him having to graduate high school, which apparently was looking kind of dodgy anyway. In the meantime he cut me a bigger percentage of the chocolate mousse.

I did pitch to a real agent at the Conference, and she asked me to send her the manuscript. I decided I’d first eviscerate my novel, so I cut two hundred pages of the most compelling, heart-wrenching, literary prose. Re-wrote the thing for the four hundred and twelfth time, slashed, wept, replenished my lost electrolytes with carrot juice and added three semi-colons.

By then I was also fifty thousand words into the next book in the series and it was time to enter the Unhanged Arthur again. Tempus fuggit, eh? A second agent saw the announcement when I was shortlisted last month and asked to have a look at it. Ultimately it wasn’t for her, but she did compliment me on my writing.

Even if I don’t win (again) this year, making the shortlist provides credibility for my career and a boost to my saggy self-esteem. Being a writer means living on an emotional roller coaster that seems to not just plummet earthward, but actually crash through the earth’s crust and take you down to where that infamous slough of despond is stashed.

If I don’t win I’ll go home and pick up the beast and carry on. I will try to improve it again; I will try to find someone who loves it. I will keep writing because I have no other choice. I will find joy in the words I craft that come alive off the page for me and keep waiting for my time to be ready.

So enter those contests, and keep on writing!