AWASH IN AWARDS

I write this as we will be departing for the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 7th, to share our wares with editors and agents from around the world. And to give you a taste of what a banner year this has been for so many of our writers.

In the last three years, Permanent Press titles have either won or been shortlisted for six of the major mystery prizes. Leonard Rosen’s All Cry Chaos (2011) was a finalist for the Edgar and Anthony Awards and won the 2012 Macavity Award for Best First Novel. This year Chris Knopf’s Dead Anyway won the Nero Award, Howard Owen’s Oregon Hill won the Hammett Prize, and Jaden Terrell’s Racing the Devil was a finalist for the Shamus Award.

Needless to say, Judy and I were dancing on the ceiling when informed about the most recent Hammett announcement which completed this Trifecta, and sent an email out to many people—reviewers, agents, scouts, editors here in the States and abroad, and to 100 other authors we’ve published. The entire letter was picked up by Ivan Goldman, another of our novelists who has his own blog and headed it boldly while, in his introduction, wrote an unforgettable, accurate, and funny line describing how our books are overlooked by the Five Families of the Literature Mafia that dictate which books are or are not "important."

YET ANOTHER AUTHOR PUBLISHED BY (LITTLE) PERMANENT PRESS WINS PRESTIGIOUS AWARD, THIS TIME THE HAMMETT PRIZE
Blog Post by Ivan G. Goldman - Oct.01.2013 - 8:38 pm
Ivan G. Goldman’s Blog on Red Room and elsewhere

Below is an email I just received from Martin Shepard of the Permanent Press, a small publisher whose books win award after award. Yet its catalog is almost completely overlooked by the Five Families of the Literature Mafia that dictate which books are or are not "important."

If you want to read that email in its entirely, check out Ivan’s blog. But the fact of the matter is that our mystery writers are kicking-ass, award-wise, despite the scant attention paid by the largest newspapers and so called-literary magazines. Judged by a jury of mystery-writing peers, this surely carries more weight and credibility than having a book review editor deciding what book to assign to his reviewers.

I say this without rancor, for it is just the way the system works. In fact, I think it has been a blessing, since so many of our best writers had been rejected for a year or longer by the biggies, then found a home with us. So we raise our glasses to toast the selection practices of the conglomerates that have left some of the most outstanding mystery writers in America—including Connie Dial, David Freed, Gwen Florio, and Baron Birtcher—to us.

And as good a year has been (with a host of sub-rights sales here and abroad), next year could well be better, with an incredible mix of mysteries, literary fiction, many returning writers, and some hybrids of sorts. To that end we’ve now put our 2014 catalog online. To see it all you need do is go our website and download it. Goodies galore for discerning readers. 

Marty