DAVID THOMPSON SPECIAL SERVICE AWARD: Bouchercon 2024 news

The National Bouchercon Board annually presents the David Thompson Special Service Award to a recipient/recipients recognizing extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the mystery and crime fiction field. 

This year the Board selected the Crime Writers of Color, and its founders: Kellye Garett, Walter Mosley, and Gigi Pandian. 

Congratulations to Crime Writers of Color. 

The David Thompson Award presentation will be part of the Bouchercon 2024 Opening Ceremony in Nashville. 

CWA DIAMOND DAGGER: Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley is the 2023 recipient of the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Diamond Dagger. Congratulations!

The Diamond Dagger recognizes authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre.

From the CWA Website:

One of the most versatile and admired writers in America, Walter Mosley was born and raised in Los Angeles, and now lives in Brooklyn and LA. Walter Mosley is the author of more than 60 critically acclaimed books, that cover a wide range of genres. His work has been translated into 25 languages.

He brought a cast of crime fiction characters into the American canon with his first novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, featuring private detective, Easy Rawlins. Several of his books have been adapted for screen, including Devil in a Blue Dress starring Denzel Washington, the HBO production of Always Outnumbered, starring Laurence Fishburne and Natalie Cole, and Apple TV+’s production of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey starring Samuel Jackson.

Maxim Jakubowski, Chair of the CWA, said: “I am truly delighted my friend Walter has been deemed worthy of the Diamond Dagger by my colleagues and members of the CWA. His voice has dominated the fiction scene for decades and I can think of no more deserving and ground-breaking an author to be given this ultimate accolade, for the so many things he has contributed to our genre but also to modern society.”
A multi-award-winning author, Mosley was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame in 2013. His numerous awards include The Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, a Grammy, and a PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, he was named the recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement from Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and the National Book Foundation presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Walter Mosley said: “At the beginning of my writing career I was fortunate enough to be awarded the CWA’s New Blood Dagger, otherwise called the John Creasey Award. That was the highest point of my experience as a first book author.  Since then, I have picked up other honours along the way but the only award that comes near the Diamond Dagger is the MWA’s Grand Master nod.  These two together make the apex of a career that I never expected.”

 

LA TIMES BOOK PRIZES 2020

The Los Angeles Times will Honor Walter Mosley at the 40th Annual Book Prizes

The LA Times Book Prizes recognize outstanding literary achievements in 12 categories, including the new Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, with winners to be announced April 17.

Walter Mosley will be honored with the Robert Kirsch Award

The annual ceremony recognizing outstanding literary achievements will take place on Friday, April 17, 2020. The ceremony kicks off the weekend literary and cultural gathering, Festival of Books, Stories and Ideas, taking place April 18-19 at USC.

Crime-fiction writer Walter Mosley will receive the 2019 Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, which recognizes a writer whose work focuses on the American West. “We are pleased to celebrate Walter Mosley’s 30-year writing life, which spans mysteries, short stories, science fiction, nonfiction, plays, and works for television and film,” said Times Books Editor Boris Kachka. “Whether through a detective story set in the streets of 1950s Los Angeles or essays about contemporary politics, Mosley reaches a wide range of readers, bringing about a deeper understanding of the world and the people who live in it.”

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Mosley eventually settled in New York City. As Columnist Patt Morrison said in a profile for The Times, “You can take Walter Mosley out of Los Angeles … but you can’t take L.A. out of Walter Mosley.” The author of more than 43 books crossing various genres, he is best known for his 14-volume mystery series featuring detective Easy Rawlins, a Black private detective living in South Central Los Angeles.

A Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, Mosley has received numerous awards, including the Edgar Award for best novel, the Anisfield-Wolf Award, a Grammy, a PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award and several NAACP Image awards.

Other categories and books of special interest to readers of this blog:

Mystery/Thriller 
Steph Cha Your House Will Pay (Ecco)
Michael Connelly The Night Fire (Little, Brown and Company)
Jane Harper The Lost Man (Flatiron Books)
Laura Lippman Lady in the Lake (William Morrow)
Attica Locke Heaven, My Home (Mulholland Books)

And in Young Adult:
Malla Nunn When the Ground is Hard

The complete list of finalists and further information, including past winners, is available at latimes.com/Book. Tickets for the ceremony will be available for purchase on March 12. The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is presented in association with USC. Festival news and updates are available on the event website, Facebook page, Twitter, and Instagram (#bookfest).

Walter Mosley to launch new Production Company

Walter Mosley has teamed up with producer Diane Houslin to launch a new production company, B.O.B. Filmhouse (Best of Brooklyn Filmhouse). Author of more than 39 novels and stories, Mosley "has had numerous books optioned and produced before, but now, for the first time, will play an active role in seeing them transformed into films and television series."

The company already has several projects underway, including The Long Fall, based on Mosley’s Leonid McGill novels, in development at HBO and a film version of Man in My Basement.

Source: Deadline

Easy Rawlins TV Series

Walter Mosley

Deadline Hollywood reports that John Wells Prodctions (Southland, Mildred Pierce) has sold the Easy Rawlins series to NBC.

NBC’s Easy Rawlins is based on Walter Mosley’s best-selling novels about Black P.I. Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, who finds himself solving crimes and dealing with the changing world around him in 1960s Los Angeles. (The books are set from 1940s to 1960s.) Easy is a reluctant, self-taught P.I. with a conscience and a soul – and he easily slips between white Los Angeles and the black underground.

Mosley will write the series adaptation with Southland co-executive producer Cheo Coker. A drama adaptation of Mosley’s Easy Rollins book series, which spanned 11 novels, was previously developed by USA Network 7 years ago. Additionally, Mosley served as an executive producer on the 2003 CBS drama pilot The Law & Mr. Lee, about an Oakland-based private eye played by Danny Glover. Easy Rawlins is the second project based on a well-known mystery series books with a minority protagonist to be set up at the broadcast networks this season. CBS recently bought a drama based on Leslie Glass’ Alice Woo novels from CBS TV Studios and Apostle.