Oh, it’s awards season alright, and the online crime experts at Spinetingler Magazine give theirs an extra focus on web-by crime (as might be expected). But they also especially want to give exposure to great (sometimes undersung) work that they and their readers think deserve it. Here are their categories and whittled-down nominees—the links in each will take you to the post where you can see/read them all. But we warn you: These categories are simply stuffed to the gills with great people and terrific work, and choosing is going to be agony!
- The nominees for Best Novel: New Voice —1-3 novels
(Includes Ryan David Jahn’s Good Neighbors, discussed here by Robert Lewis.)
- The nominees for Best Novel: Rising Star —4-8 novels
(Includes A Cold Shot to the Heart by Wallace Stroby, whose latest novel Kings of Midnight is excerpted here.)
(Includes Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled edited by David Cranmer and Scott D. Parker, who’s blogged about all kinds of crime coolness here.)
- The nominees for Best Short Story Collection
(Includes Frank Bill’s Crimes in Southern Indiana, discussed here by Marc Watkins.)
- The nominees for Best Crime Comic/Graphic Novel
(Includes “Last of the Innocent” from the Criminal series by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, discussed here by Scott D. Walker, the nominee himself! Also includes Cowboys, by Gary Phillips—who’s also blogged here—and Brian Hurt.)
- The nominees for Best Short Story on the Web
(Including a story appearing at Beat to a Pulp, “The Other Man” by Hilary Davidson, author of The Next One to Fall , which we excerpted here and which Katrina Niidas Holm also discussed as Fresh Meat.)
- The nominees for Best Crime Fiction Publisher
- The nominees for the David Thompson Community Leader Award
(Includes Musings of an All-Purpose Monkey, aka Elizabeth A. White, who blogged about short stories and the online zine scene here.)
(Includes The Dewey Decimal System by Nathan Larson, which we excerpted here.)
- The nominees for Best Cover
(Includes the David Cranmer and Scott D. Walker edited Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled—yes, him again!—and Black Orchid Blues by Persia Walker, which we excerpted here.)
Our excessive parentheticals show the nominees who’ve appeared online at Criminal Element, but not the many others in our social media circles, the many whose sites we visit for information and inspiration, people who we’ve been unsuccessfully—so far—begging to blog for us, and other fantastically talented folks who are pals or objects of admiration.
Congratulations to all the nominees! For anyone VOTING for the 2012 Spinetingler Awards, you’ve got your work cut out for you.
Spinetingler’s living up to its name—we’re simultaneously tickled and tortured.