The envelope, please......

It’s that Anthony time of year.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the process (and until this year, I wasn’t ;-) it works thusly:

Nominations open on February 28 and close April 30. Anyone who attended the most recent Bouchercon – Indianapolis - and/or is registered to attend San Francisco, is eligible to make up to five nominations in each of five categories, from books published the previous year: Best Novel; Best First Novel; Best Paperback Original; Best Short Story; Best Critical Nonfiction Work.

The by-laws were changed last year, and the Special Service Award is no longer a competitive award. It’s decided by each year’s organizing committee whether to give the award, and to whom. We'll have more on that topic a bit closer to Bouchercon.

As for this year’s nominations, we’re changing the process a bit. We’re going to do as much of this by email as possible, to make it easier for you and to increase participation. Here’s what’s going to happen:

If you attended Indy and/or are registered for San Francisco, we’ll send an email to the address we have on file sometime during the next couple of weeks, letting you know about the nominating process. (NOTE: If we don't have an email address for you, you will of course receive a paper ballot.) One of three things will happen:

• The email will go through, in which case we’ll follow up around February 28 with an email ballot.



• The email will bounce, in which case you’ll receive a paper ballot sometime between February 28 and about March 10 or so.



• You'd prefer the pleasure of receiving snail mail from us, so you’ll respond to the email by telling us that, and we’ll be happy to send you a paper ballot.
  

The finalists in each category will be announced at least 60 days prior to Bouchercon. Voting will take place in San Francisco, and the Anthonys (they’re really gonna be cool) will be awarded on Sunday, October 17 at our Awards Brunch.

So, there you have it – I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.