On November 18, I learned that the Mystery Writers of America are bestowing the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement on me this coming April.  I feel really excited, and happy, and in a way, bewildered. It seems as though it was only yesterday that I was watching Julian Symons receive the Grand Master award at my first Edgar dinner in New York.  I was a novice and a stranger; I’d taken a half day of vacation time from my day job to fly out.  I didn’t know a soul, and I was seated at a table as far from the podium as you could get, but I was incredibly thrilled to see the writers I’d admired for years. Symons was followed the next year by the gifted Margaret Millar, and then John Le Carre.  Dorothy Salisbury Davis, one of my icons, received the Grand Master in 1985.  Dorothy later became not just a good friend, but an extraordinary mentor, not just in how to write, but in how to live.  I can’t believe I’m joining this legendary company.

And I don’t feel so good myself.  That’s one of my all-time favorite book titles, by the humorist and memoirist Lewis Grizzard, but it sort of sums up why I’ve been missing in action for a while.

I was badly injured in a car crash several  years ago and all the travel I had to do this past summer/fall re-inflamed the nerve damage, so I’m having trouble typing–entries to the blog will definitely be spasmodic until that clears up.

I do want to announce a winner for our “V I’s Lover” contest.  We asked “which of her lovers should VI stay with and why?”  My thanks to everyone who took the time to think this through–she’s had at least nine that I can remember and I’ve probably forgotten a few.

Mihael Franich won me over with his romantic/philosophical take on the question:

The answer to VI’s love quest is not who… but what, when and how.  In every life, there is someone willing to go the distance, any distance, for her.  Someone who knows every intimate  hair on her skin, who sees her beyond a morning face, the beat up running shoes, really sees the person she is, understands what she needs, what she is unable to say herself.  Her love is a strong, steady guy, solid, patient, with a long distance vision.  She is in his thoughts each day, always close; he has a clear sense of their life together, the only thing he does not know is the when.  The only things he can do is stay in touch, keep showing, not telling her what love is, long distance, hoping to close that space, that she will notice, let him know it’s ok to move a little closer.”

I’ll post all the other answers in a future notice.  My own feeling is that Conrad Rawlings is the best man for V I, but there’s the unsurmountable mountain to climb of his being a cop and her being a PI.  If he agrees with her take on a crime, he’ll get the boys and girls in blue to take over from her.  If he disagrees they’ll fight, as they did in Tunnel Vision, and V I is a street fighter.   Every now and then, I get hate mail about the affair, because V I is European-American, Conrad African-American.  When the book was first published, Reader’s Digest offered me a high six-figure advance for the condensed version if I’d make Conrad white (or maybe V I black–they didn’t say).  It was a lot of money to walk away from, and maybe if I’d known how much my injury would slow down my writing I’d have thought twice instead of once…

PS My second favorite book title is Joe Namath’s autobiography: I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow ‘Cause I get Better Looking Every Day.

Yours for not quite the asking, the Grand Prize in the Body Work Sweepstakes. We’re giving away a signed copy of Body Work along with some Chicago memorabilia including not just a pound of V I’s favorite coffee, but some Cubs mementos and a few surprise gifts. This Grand Prize will go to the person with the best answer to this question:  Which of V I’s lovers should she stay with and why?

Submit answers by email only to vi-bodywork@mindspring.com by November 3rd. All answers will be posted after the winner is chosen.

Winners of previous sweepstakes drawings are welcome to enter. The winner will be chosen completely subjectively.

On September 29, the Iranian government sentenced 33-year-old Canadian-Iranian writer Hossein Derakhshan to 19.5 years in prison for his writing.  He was accused of many bogus crimes, including being an Israeli spy, but his real “crime” was blogging about Iran.  He is currently being held at Evin prison, notorious for the torture and murder of its inmates.

Please write the following people to ask for his immediate and unconditional release.  A model letter is on the PEN website where you can get more details. If your country has a diplomatic mission in Teheran, please copy your ambassador or other representative: if the Iranian authorities realize an international audience is reading your letter they will take it more seriously.

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Shoahada Street, Qom
Islamic Republic of Iran

Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sadeqh Larijani
Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh (Office of the Head of the Judiciary)
Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e Jomhouri
Tehran 1316814737
Islamic Republic of Iran

WITH COPIES TO…
President
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency,
Palestine Avenue
Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: Via Foreign Ministry: +98 21 6 674 790
(mark: “Please forward to H.E. President Ahmadinejad”)

LITERARY FORUM, TOKYO-WASEDA UNIVERSITY

PEN-Japan hosted this year’s annual PEN Congress from September 23-September 28, and I was privileged to be present.

Waseda University, where the Literary Forum took place

The Congress began with a literary forum, presented at the prestigious Waseda University, which featured my work and that of Franco-Syrian writer Salwa al Neimi, whose Proof of Honey was a cause celebre in the Middle East.  The other featured writers were Japan’s Takashi Atoda, Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, China’s Mo Yan, and the Ukrainian Marina Lewycka.

It was exhilarating to be part of the literary forum.  For each of us, Shinobu Yoshioka created a script based on our writing.  For my segment, based on Writing in an Age of Silence, he asked Midori Mori to compose original music, which accompanied a reading of the script by the professional actor Yamane Motoyo.  During the reading, a slide show illustraed the work, including film footage of Martin Luther King, Jr., the original Equality Day March on 5th Avenue in 1970, and even photo footage of my childhood home in Kansas.  The whole show was filled with images created by the great brush-stroke artist Hidekichi Shigemoto.

Brush Paintings Created during reading from Writing in an Age of Silence

Motoyo Yamane, who did the dramatic reading of my work, is a well-known television personality.  She told me she was in the news room the day LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the whole news room burst out singing “We Shall Overcome.” In the restaurant where our group was celebrating at the end of the day, she and I dumbfounded the entire place by  singing “We Shall Overcome” for them.

The end of the performance was a virtuoso exhibition by Shigemoto–he painted live in front of the audience a series of pictures that illustrated the conclusion of the text, namely, America in the post 9/11 world. After the formal production, I gave a lecture on “The Uses of Literature;” I’ll post that later (I gave four talks while in Japan, and about 10 press interviews–all interpreted by different skilled bi-lingual Japanese.  At one event, one of the regular commentors on this blog introduced herself: she used to be the head of the National Library of Japan and now works for a social justice candidate for the Diet. It was very fun to meet another regular visitor to this site!)

It was an extraordinary event, and I was most privileged to be part of it.

Meeting writers from around the world was exhilarating; I came home eager to write new work, wishing for the energy to write everything that comes to mind.

Prisoners of Conscience

On a more sombre note, while PEN, which exists to support freedom of expression around the world, was meeting, Iran imprisoned Hossein Derakhshan for 19 years for insulting Islam.  I’ll try to get details on how to protest this outrageous act and post them as soon as possible.

Doshisha University

From Tokyo, we went to Kyoto, where I had the opportunity to speak to the advanced English seminar of Professor Masami Usui.  Professor Usui graciously opened her home to my husband and me, and we spent a splendid evening with her, with Yayoi Yamamoto, who has translated all my books into Japanese, and two of Yayoi’s friends, the translator Yasuko Endo, and American professor Jane, from Nashville.

With Yayoi Yamamoto at Doshisha University

Yayoi Yamamot (right) Yasuko Endo and Sara Paretsky in a garden near Doshisha University, Kyoto

Professor Usui’s Kimono

Professor Usui surprised me by giving me the most beautiful kimono, an old one with gold and red flowers embroidered on it.  I don’t know if I will ever figure out how to wear it, and perhaps should hang it on a wall–but it’s so beautiful I long to have it on my body.

Prof Usui helps drape the kimono around me

Sara kneels in the Tea Ceremony room with dog Lilly. Prof Usui's daughter and Professor Jane stand by

Yayoi entertained us beautifully and royally during our trip.  She hosted a brilliant party, where we met her friends, who include writers, wine collectors, scientists and translators.  My career in Japan is due to Yayoi’s work; she is universally hailed as a brilliant and exceptional translator.  During my seminar at Doshisha, Professor Usui asked Yayoi to speak on translation.  She said after she reads a work in English, she floats between English and Japanese as the English text settles into Japanese images in her mind.  This image is so beguiling that I keep coming back to it, thinking of the mind floating between two very different languages and cultures.

Professor Usui, Yayoi, and her other friends turn to ancient Japanese arts and rituals as a way of keeping centered in the middle of their busy lives.  They study tea ceremony, calligraphy, embroidery or music; Professor Usui quoted to me a Japanese saying that “The person who is too busy for ritual is most in need of ritual.”

Courtenay, Professor Usui, and Yayoi Yamamoto enjoy a traditional Japanese dinner

I hope, before my life gets out of whack again back here in Chicago, to explore rituals that might help me keep centered in my own life.

With Courtenay outside the temple of the Great Buddha of Nara

Courtenay and I had one free day during the trip, which we spent at the ancient capital of Nara. Along with a thousand screaming schoolchildren, we visited the great Buddha of Nara. It stands 15 meters high and has survived war and fire for 1300 years.  Afterwards, while Courtenay rested, I visited the Isuiden Gardens outside the Daibutsu-den.  It was raining, and I had this exquisite, peace-filled garden completely to myself.

Inside the Isuiden garden, Nara

I learned about the garden from members of the “Vic Fan Club,” a group of energetic feminist women who honor me by their interest in my work.  We had dinner in Nara, organized by the Web designer Sukimo Sugiya.

At dinner with the Vic Fan Club. Ms Sugia is on my right

The women told us that they have made such strides in the last fifteen years in most arenas of work and life that the young men coming out of university seem bewildered, and apathetic.  Everywhere we went, we were told that today’s young men are “grass-eaters,” compared to the young women, who are “meat-eaters.”

Just before boarding the flight back to Chicago on October 2, I walked through the rice fields near Narita airport.  I was alone.  As the early morning mists rose from the fields, I felt my heart stand still in the face of the beauty of the stream that ran through the fields.  Surrounded by high wild rice plants, with birds singing, and the hills rising in front of me, I realized how very fortunate I am on this planet that I could witness such beauty and see such sights.

Thank you to all those who signed up to receive Sara’s newsletter. It has been a fun five weeks for the Sweepstakes Team, randomly choosing winners and having email conversations with them!

The Sweepstakes Team is pleased to have randomly chosen a grand prize winner this last week of the sweepstakes in honor of Body Work. The winner has been notified by email. The grand prize is a V I Warshawski gift basket complete with personalized copies of Body Work and Hardball, a V I t-shirt, a pound of V I’s favorite coffee, a Cubs hat, and Chicago memorabilia.

We also just heard from Sara, who is having a marvelous experience in Japan. In the coming weeks, look for a blog or newsletter entry of her experiences.

The Sweepstakes team would like to thank the following winners from Week #3 for permission to post their names on this blog:

Jorge Gutierrez
Liz Clark
Sharon Smith

Congratulations! We hope you enjoy the prizes.

Reminder to all blog readers: Sweepstakes Week #4: There is still time to win the grand prize! We will choose the winner of the V I Warshawski gift basket next week (Wednesday, September 29th, a week behind schedule). Remember that if you’re already on Sara’s newsletter list, your name is automatically entered. If you are interested in entering, click here to subscribe to her newsletter.

After a week of hectic schedules (Sara is now in Japan!) and The Computer Gremlin that Ate Sweepstakes Blog Post #2, the Sweepstakes team is back in business. First, let’s do some catch-up:

Week #1 winners include Karri Pateris, Dianna Akin-Watt, and Princilee Collins.

Week #2 winners are Wendy Haber and Mary Monell.

We hope you enjoy your prizes.

Next, let’s get moving on Sweepstakes Week #3:
Prize winners have been notified by email with requests for permission to add your name to this post (which is not required to receive your prize) and for your mailing address.

Week #4: There is still time to win the grand prize! We will choose the winner of the V I Warshawski gift basket next week (Wednesday, September 29th, a week behind schedule). Remember that if you’re already on Sara’s newsletter list, your name is automatically entered. If you are interested in entering, click here to subscribe to her newsletter.

I am sorry to have to report the sad news of David Thompson’s death.  He was co-owner of Murder by the Book, the premier mystery bookstore in Houston.  He died suddenly, at his computer, at the tragically young age of 38.  Like everyone in the mystery world, I valued his knowledge, his insight, and his support of authors, both those starting out and those who’d been around the block a few times.  He was an amazing encylopedia of knowledge of crime writing, and readers of all ages, shapes and sizes valued his advice.

His wife  McKenna Jordan needs our support during this hard time.  For more information, you can read the report in the Houston Chronicle.  I was just with David and McKenna in their store two weeks ago and still can’t quite accept that this news is true.  As Libby Hellmann says, “writers might add clarity to the mystery community, but David added heart.”

Today is the beginning of the New Year according to the Jewish calendar, and I hope that everyone who reads this page has a year of peace and health, in their own lives, and those of all the people who are dear to them.  Gandhi said we should act to be the change we want to see in the world, and so I hope I can have the courage to speak and act for peace in the year ahead.

This Saturday is also the Muslim Feast of Eid, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.  This, too, is a joyous day and I hope it, too, is one of peace and health for all who celebrate it.

Saturday marks the tenth anniversary of the destruction of the Twin Towers.   My thoughts are with all who lost a beloved person that day; the grief will not disappear soon.  And for all those who so heroically risked their lives and their health in responding to the disaster, my thoughts are with you and your families.