The Mystery Writers of America are honoring novelists Charlaine Harris and Jeffery Deaver with their Grand Masters awards.
MWA President Meg Gardiner said the group was “thrilled” to confer the lifetime achievement honors on Harris and Deaver.
“Over the course of decades, Deaver and Harris have gripped tens of millions of readers while broadening the reach of the genre with transformative books—notably, Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series, and Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels—and while generously encouraging and supporting fellow writers and the reading public,” Gardiner said. “We’re delighted to recognize their achievements.”
Harris, whose Southern Vampire series of books formed the basis for the hit HBO show True Blood, said receiving the award was “like winning the lottery and the Pulitzer Prize in one day.”
And Deaver, whose most recent novel, The Goodbye Man, was published in May, said, “I wish to express by boundless gratitude to MWA for this honor, which stands, without question, as the high point of my career.”
The MWA first awarded its Grand Master award in 1955, to Agatha Christie. Since then, it’s been given to dozens of writers, including Graham Greene, Ngaio Marsh, Phyllis A. Whitney, Sue Grafton, and Walter Mosley.
The MWA also announced that its Raven Award will go to Malice Domestic, the mystery fan convention that takes place every year in Maryland. Previous Raven Award winners have included Alfred Hitchcock, the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, and the Bouchercon convention.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
