NBA Wrapup

Since one-line Twitter entries can’t possibly cover the gamut of what happened last night (and, after sleeping on it, seem more snark-laden than intended at the time) these folks offered more National Book Award-related content:

• Bob Thompson at the Washington Post
• Hillel Italie’s take for the AP
• Motoko Rich for the NYT
• John Freeman with a Mailer-centric spin for the Guardian
• Bob Minzesheimer for USA TODAY
• Dede Hayes for Variety
• Jason Boog with his first video dispatch
• Ed Champion’s wall-to-wall coverage
• Lots also from Marydell
• Levi Asher’s report as a first-time attendee
• Tayari Jones’ similar take (with more to come, especially awesome pics!)

Like this year and last, I had a good time at the Book Awards. Why? Because even though the dress-up quotient was high and the speeches were long, I always feel a palpable love of literature in the room, even if it’s not necessarily correlated to the nominated books. But since I can always go home and spend my time on what I know and love best – crime fiction – I don’t have to take the event nearly so seriously as some people, and can instead introduce people to another and, on occasion, stir things up behind the scenes.

Most of all, I was amazed at the content generated up in the press box, from print journalists scrambling to meet near-impossible deadlines to bloggers mixing mini-podcasts and videos on the fly. Let’s say it’s giving me a ton of ideas for the Edgar Awards and other mystery-related events in terms of what’s possible and what can be produced. Content wins out, no matter what.