Thriller Awards Draw Controversy

With little over a week to go before ThrillerFest, the first convention to be hosted by the not-quite-two-year-old International Thriller Writers, a controversy has erupted around the first-ever set of ITW awards, The Thrillers, due to be given out during the convocation.

The furor began--at least in public--at the group blog The Lipstick Chronicles, where author Elaine Viets said:

It’s tough to define an award-winning thriller, but the new International Thriller Writers has succeeded:

It’s anything written by a man.

Viets said other things, as well, but it was all boiled down pretty well in those 22 words.

Unsurprisingly, Viets’ post--which was published under the heading “For Men Only” and has, at the time of this writing, generated more than 70 comments--has started a firestorm in the blogosphere, drawing the attention of everyone from Sarah Weinman--whose posting came with the clever label “The Gender Divide, Rinse and Repeat”--to author Lee Goldberg who, ever the shrinking violet, said, “The judges were men and women. So was it sexism ... or did men simply write the best work this year? You tell me. I didn’t check, but how many Jews were nominated? Jews write lots of crackling thrillers. Hmm.”

Sandra Ruttan’s Sandrablabber was one of the first blogs to publish ITW co-president Gayle Lynds’ public response to allegations of sexism on the part of International Thriller Writers. Lynds, speaking as an individual and not in an official capacity with ITW, says, in part:

As an author (not as a woman who has spent her life battling sexism), I could complain that no women were nominated. At the same time, I could also complain that no people of color were. I’m not sure whether any Muslims or religions other than Christian or Jewish were nominated, but I think they weren’t either. There also might be a preponderance of nominees from one section of the United States, which could be taken as a prejudice favoring that area.

As long as awards are given in whatever field, there are always going to be those who say, “I wish it were otherwise. And because it isn’t, it’s prejudice.”

The only time there’s really an institutional problem, at least in my mind, is when there is a history of one group of people being disenfranchised.

Since this is ITW’s first year, the organization can have no track record of institutional prejudice. ITW has worked diligently to avoid prejudice. The judges by their actions have indicated they have also been diligent in trying to create a level playing field.

The “World’s First International Festival of Thrillers” runs June 29 to July 2 at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix, Arizona. The first annual ThrillerFest Awards banquet takes place in the Biltmore ballroom on Saturday, July 1, at 7 p.m.

If these things can be judged by an opening act, it seems quite possible that the awards presentation may be thrilling, indeed.

READ MORE: “Responsible Blogging,” by J.A. Konrath (A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing).