Meet the Sara Ann Freed award winner

I’m really–OK, really late on this news, but what I can’t make up in time I can make up in extra content.

Mysterious Press has finally announced the winner of the Sara Ann Freed Award, and it’s Karen E. Olson for her novel SACRED COWS, which will be published in September 2005. Set in New Haven, the book introduces police reporter Annie Seymour who investigates the murder of a young woman on Yale campus. I believe it’s to be the first in a series.

Olson is the travel editor for the New Haven Register, and she’s recently begun blogging about all the places she’s been and you can go to as well, like–prisons?

While most people can’t just walk in and take a tour of "Camp Cupcake," [Alderson, where Martha Stewart is currently housed] tourists can get their grisly curiosities whetted at prisons around the country.

The infamous former federal prison, Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay, is a hugely popular tourist site. While there are no prisoners there now, its past is intriguing. And who can’t remember Clint Eastwood’s performance in the 1979 film "Escape from Alcatraz?"

The Tennessee state Department of Correction is immensely cooperative. According to its Web site, "Simply identify the prison nearest you, and refer to the information and guidelines related to scheduling a tour."

And you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your own home to get a virtual tour of a death row cell in Florida, compliments of the Florida Department of Correction.

Congratulations to Karen on winning the contest and I’m looking forward to reading her debut.