Into the Fire

*I realize the Christy Awards were/are designed to honor authors who’ve elevated their writing and stories “above the norm”. How else can it be expressed? It’s a separate award from all the other acknowledgments of good writing and good books where the emphasis is supposed to be on great writing. As always, every year this is debatable, and nominees must be made by the authors’ publishers. So, it’s possible not all the truly great writing (by whosever definition you choose to endorse) will be represented in the nominations and never never leave out the subjectivity of the judges based on the criteria for making those judgments. It’s simply not a cut and dried decision when judging the arts even when judges agree.

All that to say this: it might seem redundant to suggest a separate category for “literary novels” be added, and could be construed as defeating the purpose of the awards themselves. However, to mix the novels in the Suspense category as they have repeatedly chosen to do seems off the mark in my opinion. This over-broad categorizing of a few other divisions might apply as well.

Just my thoughts on these awards.