So I will keep this one very short. The Graveyard Book won the Locus Award for Best YA Novel this year. I wrote a speech for my Editor Jennifer Brehl (who was there) to deliver, and I thought I'd put it up here:
You have good years, and you have bad years. I'm having a really good year right now. The Graveyard Book won the Newbery Medal, which made me happy, and it has now won the Locus Award which makes me equally happy, in a completely different way. It's one thing to get approved of by the world out there, it's another thing to get approval from your family, and the vastness of Locus Readers and voters, comprising as it does SF and Fantasy readers and writers, editors and artists, is a family, even if it can be a quarrelsome and incestuous one, and its approval means something special. I suspect that I may be the luckiest boy in the world, and would not want you to think for one moment that I am not grateful or aware of this. The Graveyard Book took me a very long time to write, and I want to thank my son, Michael, who inspired it; my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, who supported me, my editors, Elise Howard and Sarah Odedina; my illustrators, Dave McKean and Chris Riddell; and the people at Harper Collins and Bloomsbury, who have worked so hard to make sure that people read it.
And then run for the plane. (Also, congratulations to P Craig Russell, who got a Locus Award for his beautiful graphic novel version of Coraline).
Labels: Locus awards