Well, That Takes the Prize

There have been many fiction-writing commendations dispensed lately, so we can probably be excused for failing to mention the occasional one. However, a pair of recent presentations along these lines deserve at least some small fanfare here.

Late May’s International Latino Book Awards recipients included a couple of works from the crime and mystery fiction category: Missing in Machu Picchu, by Cecilia Velastegui (Libros Publishing), and The Land Grant, by Carlos Cisneros (Arte Publico Press).

In addition, Friend of The Rap Sheet and Private Eye Writers of America founder Robert J. Randisi has won the President’s Literary Excellence Award from The ReadWest Foundation for his “contribution[s] to excellence in Western literature.” (A new video interview with Randisi can be watched here.) ReadWest also announced that Wyoming novelist Craig Johnson, whose series of mysteries featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire inspired the A&E-TV series Longmire, is one of its four Featured Authors for 2013.

We offer our hardy congratulations to all four wordsmiths.