The Company You Keep

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.

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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.)