{"id":2914,"date":"2012-01-19T16:16:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T23:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=2914"},"modified":"2012-01-20T14:50:31","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T21:50:31","slug":"an-edgar-nomination-for-icefall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=2914","title":{"rendered":"An Edgar Nomination for Icefall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just a quick note with some really cool <em>Icefall<\/em> news. Pretty soon, I hope to do another post about the travel I did in the fall, as well as a belated New Year kind of thing where I talk about my writing goals for the upcoming year.<\/p>\n<p>But in the meantime, I&#8217;m really excited to announce that <em>Icefall<\/em> is a nominee for the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theedgars.com\/nominees.html\">Edgar Allan Poe Award in the juvenile fiction category<\/a><\/span>! I am so thrilled by this. I love mysteries. I grew up watching <em>Mystery!<\/em> on PBS. I had the Edward Gorey introduction memorized, down to the desperate cooing of the lady in distress&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rAmGsM4Dids?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and Jeremy Brett will always be my first Sherlock Holmes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Sherlock-jeremy-brett-as-sherlock-holmes-16506112-600-428.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2991\" title=\"Sherlock-jeremy-brett-as-sherlock-holmes-16506112-600-428\" src=\"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Sherlock-jeremy-brett-as-sherlock-holmes-16506112-600-428.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Sherlock-jeremy-brett-as-sherlock-holmes-16506112-600-428.jpg 600w, http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Sherlock-jeremy-brett-as-sherlock-holmes-16506112-600-428-300x214.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That said, the mystery aspect of <em>Icefall<\/em> was something I always felt a bit insecure about, and doubted whether I could actually write. I think it helped that as a mystery, it is unconventional. I deliberately set out with two goals when writing it. First, I wanted multiple theories to be proven correct in the end. Second, I wanted to write a mystery where the reader didn&#8217;t actually want to know who did it. What I mean by that is, I wanted the reader to love each of the characters so much that, like Solveig, they don&#8217;t want to find out that any one of them would be capable of betraying her and her family. I don&#8217;t know if I accomplished either, but the fact that <em>Icefall <\/em>has been nominated for a mystery award delights me to no end. Thank you to the Mystery Writers of America.<\/p>\n<p>______________________________<\/p>\n<p><em>Icefall<\/em> is also a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cybils.com\/2011-finalists-fantasy-science-fiction-middle-grade.html\">finalist for the Cybils<\/a><\/span> in the Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy category, and I&#8217;m so excited about that as well. It&#8217;s always interesting to me to hear <em>Icefall<\/em> described as fantasy. Some don&#8217;t consider it to be fantasy at all, but historical fiction. As the author, I&#8217;m not sure what it is. I know that it <em>feels<\/em> like a fantasy, because the world in which it takes place is quite foreign, and the Norse myths and legends seem to be stalking the characters, lurking in the mist and the ice. But you never actually see Odin, or Thor, or any dragons or trolls. In the end, I don&#8217;t know that it has to be one or the other for the reader to enjoy it. First and foremost, it&#8217;s a story.<\/p>\n<p>______________________________<\/p>\n<p>The New York Public Library recently released their <em>100 Titles for Reading and Sharing<\/em> for 2011. <em>Icefall<\/em> is on the list, and so are a great many other wonderful titles. You should <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypl.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/30\/100-titles-reading-and-sharing-childrens-books-2011\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">check them out<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>______________________________<\/p>\n<p>And here are a few more reviews of <em>Icefall<\/em> from around the web.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kidsreads.com\/reviews\/9780545274241.asp\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Kids Reads<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fantasyliterature.com\/reviews\/icefall\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Fantasy Literature<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/picareads.blogspot.com\/2011\/11\/review-icefall.html\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Pica Reads<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bibliophilesupportgroup.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/icefall.html\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Bibliophile Support Group<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/trippingbooks.wordpress.com\/2012\/01\/11\/review-icefall\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Tripping Over Books<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/motherwrite.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/book-recommendation-icefall-by-matthew.html\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mother. Write. (Repeat.)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com\/2011\/10\/icefall-by-matthew-j-kirby-reviewed-by.html\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Fantasy Book Critic<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/luxuryreading.com\/icefall\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Luxury Reading<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just a quick note with some really cool Icefall news. Pretty soon, I hope to do another post about the travel I did in the fall, as well as a belated New Year kind of thing where I talk about my writing goals for the upcoming year.<br \/>\nBut in the meantime, I&#8217;m really excited to announce [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-icefall"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mtjQ-L0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2914"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2997,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions\/2997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}