The search for the winner of the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award will begin in late January. For the first time, two grand prizes will be awarded: one for General Fiction and one for Young Adult Fiction. Each prize is a publishing contract with Penguin Group (USA), one of the contest’s co-sponsors, with a $15,000 advance. Novels that have been previously self-published are also eligible for submission into the contest for the first time this year.
Open submissions for manuscripts will run from January 25 through February 7.
********************
Prolific romance novelist Nora Roberts is working with computer gaming company I-play to develop a game based on her 2009 book Vision in White. Shelf Life, Entertainment Weekly‘s book blog, reports that the game “follows the plot of Vision (about four friends who operate a wedding-planning company), punctuating the story with hidden-object tasks and nuptial-themed mini-games.”
********************
Penguin Group (USA) launched a new radio program this week. “Penguin Classics on Air,” a 30-minute show written and produced by employees of the publisher, will explore titles from Penguin Classics’ 1500+ catalog through discussions with scholars and other experts. The show will air Mondays from 3:00-3:30 pm and Thursdays from 11:30 to midnight on Sirius XM Book Radio (Sirius #117 and XM #163).
Upcoming episodes include “A Hero of Our Time: The First Major Russian Novel?,” “Scholem Aleichem: Yiddish Classics by the Creator of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof,” as well as shows on Washington Irving and Jose Rizal.
********************
Dorothy Gilman, author of the Mrs. Pollifax series of spy novels has been named this year’s Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America (MWA). The award recognizes Gilman’s “significant output of consistently high-quality material” in her 30+ books. “To be chosen for this award by my professional peers has to be the greatest honor of my 60 years as an author,” Gilman said.
Past recipients include James Lee Burke, Sue Grafton, Bill Pronzini, Stephen King, Marcia Muller, Dick Francis, Mary Higgins Clark, Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, P.D. James, Ellery Queen, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and Agatha Christie.
The MWA also presents Raven Awards for “outstanding achievement in the mystery field” to non-writers. This year’s recipients are Broadway producer Zev Buffman and the Mystery Lovers Bookshop. The 2010 Ellery Queen award for publishers is being presented to Barbara Peters and Robert Rosenwald of Poisoned Pen.
