I just returned from my first Bloody Words conference in Toronto
since 2000. Although I was born in Toronto ,
my parents left when I was a baby so my connection to it is kind of strange. I
have relatives there, yet the city feels like a foreign world on the rare
occasions I return. I have to say, though, that the clouds and rain, and downtown
construction which messed up traffic was a lot like being home in Vancouver .
As a member of Crime Writers of Canada’s executive board, it
was time for me to brave the long plane ride and finally return. I was impressed with
the Hilton’s facilities and really enjoyed the conference. Things were easy to
find and the coffee maker in my room was a huge bonus, since I averaged 4 to 5
hours of sleep a night.
Aside from the great pleasure of seeing old friends and
meeting new ones, there were many highlights, but I can’t cover them all, so
I’ll focus on Thursday night, which was the banquet to announce the Arthur
Ellis Awards winners (I listed the nominees back in April). As part of our
promotion efforts to raise CWC’s profile, a couple of board members arranged a
special themed dessert with Sugarstars, a team of people who produce a show for
The Food Network, which will be shown in August (date to be announced).
After the banquet and awards ceremony, we were hurdled to
another room where the TV cameras and desserts were waiting. The team recreated
an autopsy room, complete with a skeleton and x-rays on screens. There was a
shrouded “corpse” with two large feet made of
cake sticking out. You know, it’s pretty weird when someone’s standing there with
a knife, asking if you’d like one toe, or two. Also, there were arteries,
cupcakes iced with “brains” which looked far too real to eat. There were
also test tubes filled with a red drink I wasn’t bold enough to try either,
plus “eyeballs”. For a moment, I thought I'd walked into a horror
set, but it was all great fun.
And here’s the list of Arthur Ellis winners:
Best Crime Short Story
went to Cathy Astolfo for “What Kelly Did” in NorthWord Magazine. Cathy was also
awarded the Derrick Murdoch Award for her many contributions over the years to
Crime Writers of Canada.
Best Crime Nonfiction
went to Joshua Knelman for his book Hot Art:
Chasing Thieves and Detectives Through the Secret World of Stolen Art.
Best Juvenile or
Young Adult Crime went to Tim Wynne-Jones for his novel Blink & Caution.
Best Crime Book in
French went to Martin Michaud, for La
chorale du diable
Best Unpublished
First Novel went to Sam Wiebe for Last
of the Independents
Best First Novel
went to Ian Hamilton for The Water Rat of
Wanchai
Best Crime Novel
went to Peter Robinson for Before the
Poison
The Derrick Murdoch
Award also went to Don Graves , a terrific
reviewer for the Hamilton Spectator
and longtime supporter of Canadian crime fiction and crime writers.
Needless to say, there were many more highlights throughout
the conference, but it would take too long to mention them all here. All I can
say is that another Toronto
conference will be held in 2014. Be there!
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