First off, I have some happy-dance news. Doubletake, the mystery I wrote with Margaret Sutton, has won the 2015 Best Mystery Award from the Texas Association of Authors.
The award ceremony will take place in April in conjunction with the D.E.A.R Texas Event celebrating and encouraging reading and honoring Texas authors. Winners in all categories will be in Austin, appearing at numerous bookstores.
In other fun news, I am participating in a give-away to support another author in her book launch party. Karen Rose Smith is holding a contest in celebration of her new release Gilt By Association, and she invited some of her author friends to take part in the contest, so we are all guilty by association. I thought her idea to tie in to the title was clever and fun, so I am offering a copy of my mystery, Boxes For Beds, as one of the prizes. CLICK HERE to enter the contest. It ends Feb 7th, and prizes include an Amazon $100 gift card.
What I’m Reading: Still working on The Wood Beyond by Reginald Hill. I haven’t had much time to read what with working on the garage sale for the Winnsboro Center For the Arts and play rehearsals in the evenings.
Celebrating Strong Women: The honor today goes to Aung San Suu Kyi, a political activist in Burma where she is the chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD).
Aung San Suu Kyi spent many years living abroad and returned to Burma in 1988 to find that protestors of the rule of the dictator, U Ne Win, were being killed and arrested. Suu Kyi believed in democracy, and she spoke out against the dictator and his actions. That is when the NLD was born and she worked tirelessly in the nonviolent movement toward achieving democracy and respect for human rights.
In the 1990 general election, the NLD won 59% of the national votes and 81% (392 of 485) of the seats in Parliament. She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 of the 21 years from 1989 until her release in 2010, becoming one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners.
Since her release she has worked through political discussions and negotiations with military leaders in her country to bring about a democratic nation that has respect for all people. For her efforts, she has been honored with many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
Rena Pederson has written a biography of the amazing Suu Kyi, The Burma Spring Aung San Suu Kyi and he New Struggle for the Soul of a Nation, and one reviewer called the book “as much a biography of a nation as it is a biography of a courageous, charismatic woman who has risked her life to end the dark ages through political activism.”