Daggers’ Last Gasp

My colleague Ali Karim, who’s been sadly silent of late in the crime fiction world due to other commitments, emerged from hibernation to attend the Dagger Lunch last week, and provides this report and pictures (warning: slow to load) for Deadly Pleasures’ website.  More of each will be available in the next issue of Crime Spree Magazine.

Meanwhile, Publishing News makes the text of Sara Paretsky’s speech available, and here’s what the Gold Dagger Winner, who could not attend the ceremony (unlike what I’d previously believed) had to say:

This last week has brought little of joy and much of worry and fear

about the future of our most cherished freedoms in the United States — including the freedom to express ideas fully and openly.  An artist in upstate New York has been arrested and held without

charge for an installation piece questioning the bio-terror threat in

Washington during the fall of 2001. A library patron in New Jersey was

arrested and held for three days for looking at foreign-language pages

on the Web in his library. In San Francisco, the FBI pulled in a man

for questioning after he made comments against Mr Bush in a public

place. All of these acts, and the fear of their repetition, create an

atmosphere of fear, and are used deliberately to silence dissent.

In this climate of fear, the only way I can find the courage to

continue speaking is from the knowledge that I belong to a community of

writers — to know that, all around the world, people are supporting my

voice as I struggle to speak — just as I will try to support the voices

of other writers. As Donald Barthelme wrote in one of his short

stories, “we must huddle and cling.”

Thank you for your support — for huddling with me. I feel more

honoured than I can rightly say by this award. Please know that I will

cherish it.

Interesting words from one of the more politically active crime writers around.