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Mystery Writers of America Announces 2015 Grand Masters

Lois Duncan and James Ellroy

Plus 2015 Raven and Ellery Queen Award Winners

 December 12, 2014 – New York, NY – Lois Duncan and James Ellroy have been chosen as the 2015 Grand Masters by Mystery Writers of America (MWA). MWA’s Grand Master Award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality. Ms. Duncan and Mr. Ellroy will be presented with their awards at the Edgar Awards Banquet, which will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on Wednesday, April 29, 2015.

When told of being named a Grand Master, Duncan said, “I’m stunned and overwhelmed by this incredible honor! To have my own name included on this illustrious list of my idols–Agatha Christie, Ira Levin, Stephen King, Tony Hillerman–is something I could never have imagined.”

Lois Duncan published her first short story in a national magazine when she was thirteen, and her first novel, Debutante Hill, at age eighteen. Early in her career, Duncan primarily focused on romance novels for teens and pictures books for children. In 1966, Duncan published two novels that revolutionized the world of young adult fiction: Point of Violence and Ransom. Prior to these two novels, most fiction aimed at young adults was filled with ‘lessons to be learned’ and two-dimensional lead characters. Duncan changed that, using the realistic viewpoint she had brought to her earlier romance novels, presenting her main characters with choices and decisions that had consequences, paving the way for many other young adult authors that followed.

She never shied away from social issues in her work. Daughters of Eve tackled societal sexism; Killing Mr. Griffin the pressure placed on teens to perform and get into good colleges, and I Know What You Did Last Summer dealt with the Vietnam War and society’s reactions to it, plus the struggles of returning veterans. She was nominated several times for the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile, and her books have been made into films. Ms. Duncan was also a long time writing instructor at the University of New Mexico.

Few crime writers have received the acclaim and recognition that newly named Grand Master James Ellroy has received in his three-decade-long career. Ellroy’s work has long been recognized as the worthy successor to such classic crime writers as Chandler, Hammett, and Cain. Ellroy managed to combine noir and hard-boiled crime fiction with a literary style that has influenced other mystery writers as well as impressed critics.

His Los Angeles is a dark place brimming with sexism, crime, homophobia, and racism. Ellroy confronts these issues in all of their ugliness with brutal honesty. Ellroy doesn’t pretend that the past was a pretty place. His characters live on the page, warts and all, and he has experimented with style, point of view, and language in a way that doesn’t interfere with the rapid pace of his stunning plotting. Several times his work has been filmed. L. A. Confidential may be one of the best crime films ever made.

Upon learning he was named a Grand Master, Ellroy said, “This is a splendid honor; it lauds my career to date and spurs me on to stay young, healthy, and productive. The Mystery Writers of America: ever honorable, ever grand in their contribution to the craft of crime writing.”

Previous Grand Masters include Robert Crais, Carolyn Hart, Ken Follett, Margaret Maron, Martha Grimes, Sara Paretsky, James Lee Burke, Sue Grafton, Bill Pronzini, Stephen King, Marcia Muller, Dick Francis, Mary Higgins Clark, Lawrence Block, P.D. James, Ellery Queen, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and Agatha Christie.

The Raven Award recognizes outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing. Two Raven Awards will be awarded in 2015: one to the Jon and Ruth Jordan and the other to Kathryn Kennison.

It’s impossible to overstate the passion that Jon and Ruth Jordan have for mysteries. The two founded Crimespree Magazine in 2004, a bimonthly print magazine with a devoted following. Unlike some publications which cater to a particular niche in crime fiction, Crimespree is meant for readers across the mystery spectrum, from cozy to noir, and the magazine is devoted to promoting writers who are not (yet) household names. Crimespree Magazine also sponsors the Crimespree Awards, honoring excellence in the genre.

The Jordans have been heavily involved with the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, too, having first met at Bouchercon in 1999. Ruth Jordan co-chaired Bouchercon Baltimore in 2008. Jon Jordan chaired Bouchercon St. Louis in 2011, and the two of them, with Erin Mitchell, will co-chair the St. Petersburg convention in 2018. Their volunteer contributions have even extended to planning the convention programming for other years. The Jordans are also the co-founders and organizers of Murder and Mayhem in Muskego, a crime-fiction conference set in a Milwaukee suburb that this year became Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee, bringing the conference into the heart of the city.

 When advised they would receive the Raven Award, they said, “Given the list of people who have been given this award, it is humbling and an honor to be asked to join this group. We’d also like to note that we squealed and did a little dance when we found out, though we won’t be doing this dance in public.”

Kathryn Kennison is the founder and heart and soul of Magna cum Murder, a well-regarded Midwestern mystery conference celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. Magna’s start can be traced back to 1993 when Kathryn pitched the idea of putting together a three-day mystery conference in Muncie, Indiana. What Kathryn envisioned a “sedate weekend affair” with about 65 people including 3 or 4 authors ended up as a party with 265 registered guests including 40 authors, and the festival has only grown since then. In 2013 the convention was moved to downtown Indianapolis where there is a larger population. Guests of honor have included Alexander McCall Smith, Mary Higgins Clark, Donald Westlake, Sara Paretsky, Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, Sue Grafton, Lawrence Block, Louise Penny, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Charles Todd, Jeffrey Deaver, William Kent Krueger and John Gilstrap. It has retained its roots as a fan festival.

Kathryn said, “As a natural-born hero-worshipper, my champions always have been storytellers, so being selected by Mystery Writers of America to receive the Raven award is more humbling and gratifying than I can begin to describe. I’m so very proud, honored and indebted to you. ‘Thank you’ seems so inadequate, but I offer my most profound thanks.”

Previous Raven winners include Aunt Agatha’s Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Oline Cogdill, Molly Weston, The Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore in Chicago, Once Upon a Crime Bookstore in Minneapolis, Mystery Lovers Bookstore in Oakmont, PA, Kate’s Mystery Books in Cambridge, MA, and The Poe House in Baltimore, MD.

The Ellery Queen Award was established in1983 to honor “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry. This year the Board chose to honor Charles Ardai, editor of Hard Case Crime. Hard Case Crime debuted in 2004, as an homage to the great pulp fiction paperbacks of the 1950’s and 1960’s (the ‘golden age of paperbacks’); the very books that helped shape and influence many generations of crime writers as well as the genre itself. Launched by Ardai and Max Phillips, Hard Case almost immediatelyhad an impact on the crime fiction world—Domenic Stansberry’s The Confession won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original and several others were nominated in the years following. The publishing company has also

brought back into print forgotten gems by Donald Westlake, Erle Stanley Gardner, Harlan Ellison, Pete Hamill, and Lawrence Block. In the decade since its launch, Hard Case has published over 100 books and has also produced some excellent new titles, making short lists for almost every award in the mystery genre. Their list looks like a who’s who in American crime fiction.

On learning he would receive the Ellery Queen Award, Ardai said, “Ellery Queen has always been my model of what an editor should be: informed, engaged, ambitious, clever, a passionate evangelist, possessed of excellent taste, and gifted at unearthing wonders. To receive, for my own editing, the award that bears his name is that rarest of things in our profession: an honor beyond words.”

The Edgar Awards, or “Edgars,” as they are commonly known, are named after MWA’s patron saint Edgar Allan Poe and are presented to authors of distinguished work in various categories. MWA is the premier organization for mystery writers, professionals allied to the crime-writing field, aspiring crime writers, and those who are devoted to the genre. The organization encompasses more than 3,000 members including authors of fiction and non-fiction books, screen and television writers, as well as publishers, editors, and literary agents. For more information on Mystery Writers of America, please visit the website: www.mysterywriters.org

I received the best letter from the lucky winner of the September Bookshelf of books, and I had to share —

Stacy,

My box of books was sitting at our garage door this morning (at 4am) when my husband left for work! I’ve just been sitting, staring at them and hugging them —- this is better than any Christmas I’ve ever had!  I’m just so excited, can’t sit still and this will keep me and my husband busy with books for a while……..thank you ever so much and special thanks to all the authors, and International Thriller Writers, Inc.!!!!!!  

Heaven, I’m in heaven……….from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!! 

Bones Never Lie (Kathy Reichs,) The Lost Key (Catherine Coulter & J.T. Ellison,) Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot Reed Farrell Coleman,) Tokyo Kill (Barry Lancet,) The Sun is God (Adrian Mckinty,) Sabotage Matt cook,) Everyone Lies (A. D. Garrett,) Shattered Secrets (Karen Harper,) Beware Beware (Steph Cha,) No Time to Die (Kira Peikoff ) and Personal (Lee Child)!!!!  What a dream!!! When I’m done with them I give them to our library. They’re kind enough to process them for the library users……..

Lynn

I also need to say a big thank you to the International Thriller Writers for making it all possible, and to the generosity of all the authors who choose to participate.

Many years ago when I was a bookseller at Borders (R.I.P) one of the best perks of the job was getting advance reader copies of books – before they went on sale to the public, and for free! I was always thrilled to find the latest book in a series I loved – Harry Potter! Harry Bosch! There’s something about Harry…but I digress.

Way back in 1998 I started my website as a way to keep track of the books I’d read. A publisher contacted me via the website and asked if I’d like to give away their books and I didn’t hesitate for a second. I knew how much I loved getting free books, and couldn’t wait to share with my readers. Then another publisher asked if I would give away their books, and before I knew it, I was giving away hundreds of books each year.

Getting letters like this one from Lynn makes all the work worthwhile. I barely make enough money from the website to break even and that’s fine because I do what I do because I love it.

So Lynn, thanks for writing and enjoy your books!

Congratulations to William Kent Krueger for winning the Bouchercon 2014 trifecta: the Anthony, Macavity & Barry awards for Best Novel, Ordinary Grace!


BEST NOVEL
Suspect – Robert Crais [Putnam]
A Cold and Lonely Place – Sara J. Henry [Crown]
Ordinary Grace – William Kent Krueger [Atria]
The Wrong Girl – Hank Phillippi Ryan [Forge]
Through the Evil Days – Julia Spencer-Fleming [Minotaur]

BEST FIRST NOVEL
Yesterday’s Echo – Matt Coyle [Oceanview]
Ghostman – Roger Hobbs [Alfred A. Knopf]
Rage Against the Dying – Becky Masterman [Minotaur]
Reconstructing Amelia – Kimberly McCreight [HarperCollins]
The Hard Bounce – Todd Robinson [Tyrus]

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
The Big Reap – Chris F. Holm [Angry Robot]
Purgatory Key – Darrell James [Midnight Ink]
Joyland – Stephen King [Hard Case Crime]
The Wicked Girls – Alex Marwood [Penguin]
As She Left It – Catriona McPherson [Midnight Ink]

BEST SHORT STORY
“Dead End” – Craig Faustus Buck [Untreed Reads]
“The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository” – John Connolly, Bibliomysteries [Mysterious Bookshop]
“Annie and the Grateful Dead” – Denise Dietz, The Sound and the Furry: Stories To Benefit the International Fund for Animal Welfare [Amazon Digital]
“Incident on the 405” – Travis Richardson, Criminal Element’s Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble [Macmillan]
“The Care and Feeding of Houseplants” – Art Taylor, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2013

BEST CRITICAL OR NONFICTION WORK
Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes – Maria Konnikova [Viking Adult]
The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and Medics Behind Nazi Lines – Cate Lineberry [Little, Brown]
All the Wild Children – Josh Stallings [Snubnose Press]
The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot To Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War – Daniel Stashower [Minotaur]
Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense – Sarah Weinman, ed. [Penguin]

BEST CHILDREN’S OR YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
The Testing – Joelle Charbonneau [Houghton Mifflin]
Escape Theory – Margaux Froley [Soho Teen]
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library – Chris Grabenstein [Random House Children’s Books]
Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy – Elizabeth Kiem [Soho Teen]
The Code Busters Club: Mystery of the Pirate’s Treasure – Penny Warner [Egmont USA]

BEST TV EPISODE TELEPLAY, FIRST AIRED IN 2013
The Blacklist – Pilot by Jon Bokenkamp – Sept. 2013 [Davis Entertainment, NBC]
Breaking Bad – “Felina” by Vince Gilligan – Sept. 2013 [AMC]
The Fall – “Dark Descent” by Allan Cubitt – May 2013 [Netflix Original]
The Following – Pilot by Kevin Williamson – Jan. 2013 [Warner Bros. Television, Fox]
Justified – “Hole in the Wall” by Graham Yost – Jan. 2013 [Warner Bros. Television, Fox]

BEST AUDIO BOOK
Hour of the Rat – Lisa Brackmann – Tracy Sallows, narrator [Audible]
Man in the Empty Suit – Sean Ferrell – Mauro Hantman, narrator [AudioGO]
The Cuckoo’s Calling – Robert Galbraith – Robert Glenister, narrator [Hachette Audio]
Crescendo – Deborah J. Ledford – Christina Cox, narrator [IOF Productions]
Death and the Lit Chick – G.M. Malliet – Davina Porter, narrator [Dreamscape Media]

The David Thompson Memorial Special Service Award: Judy Bobalik

PWA (Private Eye Writers of America) SHAMUS AWARDS

St Martins / PWA award to Grant Bywaters for The Red Storm

Best PI Short Story: SO LONG, CHIEF by Max A Collins

Best First PI Novel: BEAR IS BROKEN by Lachlan Smith

Best Indie PI Novel – Don’t Dare a Dame by M Ruth Myers

Best Paperback Original: HEART OF ICE by PJ Parish

Best Hardcover PI Novel : Brad Parks The Good Cop

LIfetime Achievement: Sue Grafton

Thanks to Ali Karim for photo, & Janet Rudolph, Mystery Scene for info

I am off to Bouchercon, AKA “Murder at the Beach” in Long Beach, California, the world’s largest mystery convention. This is my first time attending so I’m very excited!

Guests of Honor include Simon Wood, J.A. Jance (love her!) Edward Marston & Eoin Colfer. The fabulous Jeffery Deaver is getting the very well deserved Lifetime Achievement Award.

Other authors in attendance include lots of my favorties – Michael Connelly (I’m not stalking him, I swear!) Charlaine Harris, Ivy Pochoda (one of my favorite debuts ever) Linwood Barclay, Gregg Hurwitz, Cara Black, Hank Phillippi Ryan (her latest is one of Library Journal’s best thrillers of 2014,) Laurie R. King, Michael Sears, Barry Lancet, Steph Cha, Sheldon Siegel, Marcia Clark, Duane Swierczynski, and Lee Child (and yes, I am stalking you!)

There are lots more, I’m not kidding – see everyone who is signed up here: http://www.bouchercon2014.com/attendees.php

I will be Tweeting, Facebooking and posting about my experience so stay tuned!

I was in Costco and they were putting out Christmas merchandise. In September. Such is life, but it reminded me that we are heading into the season of giving, and I have something to say to all the worthy organizations that need our help.

For my birthday last year, my daughter made a donation to Feeding America in my honor. Their website shows some pretty impressive statistics. “For every dollar donated, Feeding America secures and distributes 9 meals on behalf of food banks.” They claim to be a Better Business Bureau accredited charity, and a “Four Star” charity according to Charity Navigator. I was touched that my daughter did this on my behalf, and proud of her for thinking of others when she thought of me.

And then the phone calls started. Every night. We have VOIP (voice over internet protocol) phone service, which means when the phone rings, the caller’s name pops up on my TV as well as on the caller ID. Night after night, the same name called. It was, as you may have guessed, someone from Feeding America, asking for my daughter, and looking for another donation. This lasted for several weeks before they turned to the U.S. Mail service. The mail still comes regularly, and now, a couple of months before my birthday rolls around again, the phone calls have started up again.

I don’t mean to pick on this particular charity. They are not alone in their harassment. My son was born six weeks premature and I decided to volunteer with the March of Dimes because of their work with preemies. The first few years of my son’s life, I walked my neighborhood, handing out envelopes seeking donations from my neighbors. I stopped after a few years because I wasn’t comfortable with the way the organization kept after me to do more, to give more. If my neighbors weren’t making donations, it was suggested that perhaps I wanted to make up that shortfall. I did not.

I told them why I stopped, in hopes that they would stop. My son is 29 years old. I am still getting phone calls and letters asking for my help from the March of Dimes, more than a quarter of a century after I complained about the harassment.

My son and I are both University of South Florida alums which means, you guessed it, twice as many phone calls soliciting us for money. To add insult to injury, he hasn’t lived at home in many years. On the somewhat dubious bright side, when I’ve asked, I’ve been told the person calling is not paid staff but rather a student volunteer.

NPR? Sends out occasional emails and letters seeking donations. PBS does the same, not to mention their pledge weeks – but at least I can change the channel. That seems reasonable to me.

This list is by no means complete. And let me also add, in case you were wondering, that I am not a big money donor by any means. I’m a librarian – I don’t make much so I don’t give much. I hate to say it but almost every charity I’ve ever made a donation to has left me feeling like my $20 or $50 or $100 has simply been used to pay staff to solicit even more money from me. I know that may not be true, but it feels true.

I am happy to say that there are exceptions. I’ve made many donations over the years to the Red Cross, and never got anything other than a thank you. Same with Doctors Without Borders, the PanMass Challenge and those emergency funds that I’ve texted donations to, like Hurricane Sandy relief. I think St. Jude’s Childrens’ Hospital only sends one or two letters a year looking for money as does a local charity, Boca Helping Hands. That seems reasonable to me. United Way does an annual presentation at my place of employment that I can attend if I want, and occasionally sends a letter about some immediate need in my community. And by occasionally I mean that’s happened a couple of times in all the years I’ve been giving to them.

I’ve always abided by Winston Churchill’s wise words, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” I understand that charities run on donations. I know that when the economy tanked several years ago that charitable organizations took a big hit. But I don’t think soliciting money should feel like harassment, and most of the time it does. Calling people night after night is just way beyond the bounds of common sense and decency. Sending letters weekly or even monthly is irksome to me, all the paper going into the trash (or even the recycling bin) is just a waste of resources.

I don’t claim to know what the answer is. I won’t stop making donations, but I do stop making them to organizations that I feel are squandering their limited resources. If I contribute $25 and in return, get dozens of phone calls and several letters, I feel like I’ve completely wasted my money. I don’t make donations so that the organizations I donate to can use my money to harass me.

I’d love to know how other people feel about this, even better, how to handle this. Please feel free to share you thoughts in the comments below, or by email if you don’t wish to make your comments public.

National Book Foundation and Miami Book Fair International Announce New Partnership to Bring National Book Award Winners and Finalists to the Miami Book Fair

 National Book Award honored authors will travel to Miami the day after the National Book Awards Ceremony in New York 

Miami, Aug. 19, 2014 – The National Book Foundation and Miami Book Fair International, presented by The Center for Literature and Theatre @ Miami Dade College, announced today that they will partner to invite all 20 of this year’s National Book Award Winners and Finalists to participate in the 2014 Miami Book Fair. The National Book Awards Ceremony will take place in New York on November 19 and the Winners and Finalists will travel to Miami the following day. National Book Award evenings at Miami Book Fair are made possible by support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The partnership is an exciting step forward for both the Miami Book Fair, an internationally renowned and groundbreaking literary festival, and the National Book Awards, the United States’ foremost literary award. Having NBA authors in Miami to participate in the Fair’s literary programming will further expand the audience for National Book Award honored books and  highlight the central place of the National Book Awards in the country’s literary culture.

The National Book Awards are presented in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. Winners and Finalists are selected by independent panels of five writers and other experts in the category. A Longlist of ten in each category will be announced during the week of September 15.  Finalists will be announced on October 15.

The Miami Book Fair will take place from November 16 to 23 this year. The Fair presents over 500 authors a year during the eight-day event; audiences number over 200,000 each year.

“This is a wonderful partnership I envision carrying forward for many years,” said Mitchell Kaplan, chair of the Miami Book Fair Board of Directors. “It’s natural and makes sense on so many levels. The Fair has hosted many National Book Award Winners in its thirty-year history, we hope to do so for another thirty, and this partnership will just get stronger.”

“Our goal is to expand the audience for the best of American literature,” said Harold Augenbraum, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. “Appearing in Miami right after the National Book Awards in New York represents an extraordinary continuation of our celebration and an opportunity for new and exciting relationships between this year’s Winners and Finalists and the avid readership that attends the Miami Book Fair.”

For regular updates on the Miami Book Fair, please visit www.miamibookfair.com, call 305-237-3528 or email wbookfair@mdc.edu. Find the Fair on social media at

https://twitter.com/miamibookfair

https://www.facebook.com/MiamiBookFair

http://instagram.com/miamibookfair

http://thecenteratmdc.tumblr.com/ 

The National Book Foundation’s mission is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America. In addition to the National Book Awards, for which it is best known, the Foundation’s programs include 5 Under 35, a celebration of emerging fiction writers selected by former National Book Award Finalists and Winners; the National Book Awards Teen Press Conference, an opportunity for New York City students to interview the current National Book Award Finalists in Young People’s Literature; NBA on Campus, a partnership that brings current National Book Award authors to Concordia College in Moorhead, MN; the Innovations in Reading Prize, awarded to individuals and institutions that have developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading; and BookUp, a writer-led, after-school reading club for middle- and high-school students, run in New York City and Bryan, Texas.

The National Book Award is one of the nation’s most prestigious literary prizes and has a stellar record of identifying and rewarding quality writing. In 1950, William Carlos Williams was the first Winner in Poetry, the following year William Faulkner was honored in Fiction, and so on through the years.  Many previous Winners of a National Book Award are now firmly established in the canon of American literature, such as Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich, Jonathan Franzen, Denis Johnson, Joyce Carol Oates, and Adrienne Rich.

Miami Book Fair International, widely considered the largest and finest literary event in the U.S., is the premier event of The Center for Literature and Theatre @ Miami Dade College, a part of MDCulture, the Cultural Affairs Department of the College. The Center promotes reading, writing and theater at locations throughout South Florida by consistently presenting activities open to all. Its Generation Genius programs for children and teens promote literacy and learning. Its creative writing program has national appeal, and courses are taught by local and visiting authors. It is also home to Prometeo Theatre, the nation’s leading Spanish language, conservatory-style program offering training for actors, and featuring performances throughout the year. In 2012, the Center celebrated its tenth year with a renewed commitment to the advancement of literary and theater arts.

Today is a sad day for me. One of my reviewers, Paul Lane, lost his wife and the funeral is this morning.

I’ve known Paul at least ten years and we worked together for most of those. When he retired from the library, which was his second career, his  “retirement” job, he started writing reviews for me.

In all the years I’ve known him, the one thing that was constant was his love for his wife. Anita was a beautiful woman, and Paul was head over heels about her. I don’t know how long they were married, but I would guesstimate over 40 years, and to be that much in love after so long really says a lot, about him and their marriage. Note: Just learned they were married 53 years!

Yesterday, one of my favorite library patrons came in. Eleanor lost her husband a few months ago. They were married over 60 years and she is just devastated. He was her best friend and she misses him terribly. It’s all she talks about now. She gets no pleasure from life anymore because she can’t share it with him.

All that has had me thinking. Today is an anniversary of sorts for me. Ten years ago today my husband had a heart attack, which saved his life.

Ten years this morning he woke me at 5:30 and said he felt funny, something was wrong. He had some achiness in his right shoulder, not the left, and his jaw felt achy too, enough that it woke him. He went online and searched until he found something that said it could be signs of a heart attack.

The EKG they did in the emergency room did not indicate a heart attack, but was odd – they said it looked like an EKG someone would have after taking a stress test.

It turned out to be a very minor heart attack, so minor that they had to wait 24 hours for his blood work to come back to determine that there had been damage, albeit “just a few cells.” But that prompted an angioplasty, which the doctor felt would indicate he needed a stent. A short while later, we found out he needed a bit more than a stent. He underwent a quadruple bypass at age 48.

The surgeon called him his “pediatric” patient. The cardiac ICU nurse assured me that we were incredibly lucky; most heart attacks in men in their 40’s are fatal. We were also lucky to have one of the best heart hospitals in the country, Delray Medical Center, nearby.

My husband is still here, half way to the 20 years they “guaranteed” his bypass surgery. Last weekend he went on a 30 mile hike through the Everglades. He walks almost every day and tries to eat right when I’m not cooking food that not’s good for him (or me!)

We’ve been married for 32 years. He’s been my best friend all these years and I can’t imagine a life without him. He’s put up with a lot over the years – from me, my family, his family, even our kids now and then. So when Eleanor complains she gets no joy from life anymore, I understand. And I know that Paul will be feeling that way too, at least for a while.

It’s a good day to reflect.