I have just returned to the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City after the Agents & Editors cocktail party, where I received an incredible honor. This honor of which is speak is a special Edgar® Award, the Simon  & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award. This treasure was presented to me for my first in the WILD Mystery Series, WILD INDIGO, by none other than Mary Higgins Clark herself. My presenter, Ms. Clark, was not only gowned and coiffed elegantly (as always), but as gracious and good-hearted as could be.

I'm still drinking it all in, not yet in real-time.

To tell the honest truth, I never dreamed...not of the nomination, nor of winning the award. Particularly amid such a distinguished and accomplished field of nominees. And yet, here beside my laptop in my hotel room is an engraved crystal book that reads:

"The Mary Higgins Clark Award/April 2008/Mystery Writers of America/Simon & Schuster/Presented to Sandi Ault, Wild Indigo."

I am sufficiently amazed that I am unable to say much more about it. The event flashed past me like a bolt of lightning. I cannot remember much at all except that it happened, and now here is this beautiful trophy. I do remember saying thanks (or at least I hope I actually said these thanks) to all those who make a book happen, and I can recount those many gratitudes to you readers here:

Once a writer produces a story, there are so many amazing and diligent and talented people who make that story into a book that it almost seems unfair to put only the author's name under the title. There is almost always an agent, and an editor and perhaps an assistant or associate editor, a copy editor, a master editor, an art department, a publicity department, a sales department, a marketing department, and so on and so on and so on. All these people add their hard work and talents to the story that becomes a book that wins an award that the author takes home with her name alone on the prize. To all these characters who helped me along in the journey of WILD INDIGO, I say thank you, and I am grateful.

I also thank my husband, Tracy, the Tiwa people who shared stories with me, my family and friends who believed in me and supported me, the booksellers and fans, and the Mystery Writers of America and the committee of judges who read the book and gave it their vote. And of course, as always, I am ever grateful to Mountain, the wolf in WILD INDIGO, who gave me so many lessons and stories and traveled with me as that story became a book.

This is all some kind of wonderful!

I'm still swooning over The L.A. Times Festival of the Book, which just ended on an upnote last evening, when I attended the Agents Panel, which was standing room only—a fair-sized auditorium filled with aspiring authors wanting to hear the latest from agents on what will get them that sought-after publishing deal. I attended mystery panels as well, and was pleased to participate in one deftly moderated by Sarah Weinman. I signed and signed and signed, met thousands of fans, and hung out in the fabulous, constantly gourmet-catered, green room where I met everyone from Scott Simon to Tim Curry and every author you can imagine inbetween.

A high point for me was meeting Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol Higgins Clark. Since I am nominated for the MHC Award at the Edgars for WILD INDIGO, it was a delight to meet these two women who are the very embodiment of success in the publishing world. I also attended their delightful panel in which ace NPR interviewer Fran Helpern steered them from past to present and all points in between, eliciting delightfully intimate and heartfelt responses from the two authors, as she probed with extraordinarily insightful questions.

The heat was sweltering, and yet nearly 150K fans came pulling wheeled carts or schlepping backpacks to meet and hear their favorite book people, to have them sign and to have their photos taken with them. I'll fill in more details later, but I'm on an incredibly tight schedule to get to the Edgars in NYC this week next. In the meantime, with all the media hype about how the book is dead, let them eat cake (in the green room at the LAT FOB). In Los Angeles, at least for this one spectacular weekend, over a hundred thousand of us braved the heat and the crowds to say Long Live the Book!

For photos from the LAT FOB, check out the WILD Blog Photo Album by clicking HERE:

    Here in the mountains, ravens call to us as we hike up the slopes of the mountain, through the pines. Tiwa, our wolf companion, wallows in a deep pocket of snow to cool himself from the heat of exertion and a sunny day. It's beautiful here in the Rocky Mountains, where snow still falls at least once a week, but spring pushes through and brings sunlit afternoons that warm into the sixties. I smell the sharp scent of the pine needles as the sap rises. I pick up a handful of snow mounded against a lichen-covered rock outcropping and find it has condensed to ice crystals the consistency of a good snowcone. The sky is the color of turquoise. One raven scolds as we crunch through the snow and pine needles, warning every resident of the forest that there are strangers coming.

    This coming week starts another round of travel that will lead us far from these mountains and from our home. First, to the Pacific Northwest, where I will enjoy reuniting with friends and fans and talking again with media for a signing in Tacoma, WA. From there, on to sunny Los Angeles for The L.A.Times Festival of the Book, an exciting celebration of literature that features literally hundreds of authors, editors, agents, literary critics, writers, bloggers, and thousands of fans. What an honor it is to be invited to such a premiere event!  And from there-directly-a long flight with my agent and my husband clear across the continent to the asphalt jungles of New York City, where the Annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards® will be given out at a televised, red-carpet, black-tie gala at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

There in New York, the only raven we will likely encounter might be the poem by the patron saint for which the Edgar® Award is named. The Edgars® are commonly known as "The Academy Awards of Mystery", and these "Oscars®" of our genre are awarded in much the same way as the film industry recognizes its best and brightest. The best and the brightest of professionally-published mystery authors nominate and then jury the latest crop of work. What a mark of distinction it is for me as an author to have a book nominated for an award by such distinguished peers! But even more: WILD INDIGO is the first and only debut novel to be nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, making it even more of an tribute!

    I cannot help but wish Mountain, the wolf in WILD INDIGO and in the WILD Mystery Series, were here for all of this excitement, and to see what a celebrity he has become. But of course, Mountain would care nothing for the asphalt jungle, the black tie attire, or probably even the Edgar®. He would be more at home with the mountain, the pines, the raven, and the swales still full of snow, as Tiwa was on our hike today. Mountain was with me in spirit as we went up the mountain, just as he and I did so many times together-up the slopes to Tradition Rock, an outcropping from which you can see the whole pine-covered valley, and from which our small cabin looks no larger than the dot at the end of this sentence. So many times, Mountain and I packed a lunch and spent the day on those very slopes, and the trails we hiked and the rocks we climbed were permeated with beautiful memories for me. Mountain was always ready for another adventure.

    I would love to bring home an Edgar® to commemorate the journey that Mountain and I took through life and onto the pages of WILD INDIGO and the WILD Mystery Series. I would love to share it with him when I return and visit the place where we scattered some of his ashes, to thank him again for teaching me so much about how to live. But no matter what happens, I am thrilled and completely honored to have been nominated. What an exciting adventure this has become: from ravens and rocks and mountains and pines, from coast to coast, from the work I love to the asphalt jungle to celebrate with my esteemed colleagues the highest achievement of storytellers in our field. From the delight of meeting so many wonderful fans of the West and of mystery in particular to the delightful call of the raven as we pass through the pines on our way to Tradition Rock. What a wonderful journey, indeed.

For photos of Tiwa, Tradition Rock, and hiking with the ravens in the mountains, check out the WILD Blog Photo Album by clicking HERE: