ICYMI: Lefty Awards Updates

If you’ve ever been to a Left Coast Crime, you know about the awards handed out. There’s always a “Lefty Award,” there’s often a historical award, and after that, the categories tend to shift around a bit, because the local organizing committee has the ability to define which other awards they want to present.

The names also tended to change every year, to reflect the local area. For example, in LCC Portland this year, “The Rose” was handed out for the best mystery novel set in the LCC region, and “The Rosebud” was awarded to the best first mystery novel.

But that’s going to change a bit, starting at the Great Cactus Caper (Phoenix, 2016). Going forward, there are two major changes being made to the LCC awards structure:

1.       Naming convention: all awards will be considered “Leftys.” That means we’ll see the Lefty for Best Humorous Novel, the Bruce Alexander Memorial Lefty for Historical Mystery, the Lefty for Best First Novel, and so on.

2.       Two fixed awards: from now on, the Leftys for both the Best Humorous Novel and the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Novel will be awarded every year. The local organizing committee will have the choice to award as many as two additional Leftys, in the categories of their choosing.

What does this mean? Maybe you should start making your lists now! LCC Phoenix will send out nomination requests after the first of the year for the following categories:

• Best Humorous Novel: awarded to the best humorous mystery novel of 2015.
• Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award: awarded to the best mystery novel of 2015 covering events before 1960.
• Best LCC Regional Novel: awarded to the best mystery novel set in the LCC region.
• Best Novel: awarded to the best mystery novel of 2015.

And you wouldn’t want to forget that great book you read in the first half of the year….