My Fibonacci book honored with a new math #kidlit award

If you have spent any time as a child or browsed the children's section of a bookstore, you know that there are numerous awards for children's literature. The Newbery. The Caldecott. The Theodor Seuss Geisel. The Coretta Scott King. The Michael L. Printz. The Laura Ingalls Wilder. And on and on. Most are awarded each year during the American Library Association's midwinter conference. Over the years, awards have been created to honor African-American authors and illustrators, Latino/Latina creators, or to pay tribute to books that highlight the LGBT experience.

There has never been an award to specifically celebrate math-themed children's books.* Until now.

Last Friday, April 17, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) and the Children's Book Council (CBC) announced the first winners of their first annual Mathical Prize for math-themed children's literature. The orgs picked four winners for books published in 2014, and then picked a dozen other "Honor Books" as a way of paying tribute to books that were published in the years 2009-2013, before this new award was established. 

My children's book, Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, is one of those Honor Books. Blockhead is a fable about the real-life mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci. It was published by Henry Holt in the spring of 2010. Obviously, I was stunned to get the news. In this business, you don't expect to be singled out for attention five years after the fact. But it is gratifying nonetheless.

Why math book awards? It's no secret that children learn in different ways. Children's books that touch upon math themes can inspire a child in ways that a math textbook, worksheets, or even careful instruction by a devoted teacher will not. Adults forget this, so an award that calls attention to math-themed #kidlit is not a bad way to remind them.

My thanks to these two orgs and their selection committee. My congrats to all the authors and illustrators of the 2014 Mathical Award Winners and the Honor Books.

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* To be strictly accurate, in 2012 Bank Street College established the Cook Prize, which annually honors children's picture books that make perfect additions to STEM curricula. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.) The finalists for the Cook Prize are voted upon by actual kids, who choose the winner.

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Green Man on the Road

My co-author Christian Hageseth is on the road this week, promoting our book, Big Weed: An Entrepreneur's High-Stakes Adventures in the Budding Legal Marijuana Business (Palgrave/Macmillan). (Learn more and order the book here.)

The book has already gotten some serious love from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews (which tends to hate everything) and Vanity Fair, of all places.

Mr. Hageseth is in NYC tonight, getting ready for a day of print and TV interviews tomorrow. His schedule in the coming week is as follows:

Monday April 20th– New York City
Live, in-studio interviews:
WNYC “Brian Lehrer Show” – 11:20am EST
FOX Business “Varney & Company” – 11:55am EST

Tuesday April 21st – Seattle
Live, in-studio interview:
KING 5 – 9:15am PT
Panel event and book signing, with author Bruce Barcott: Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Ave. Seattle, WA 98101, 7:30pm PT
(This will be a 40-minute panel discussion between Christian and Bruce, followed by questions from the audience and a book signing. Moderator is Dominic Corva, Executive Director of Cannabis and Social Policy.)

Big Weed gets a mention in the "Hot Type" column in Vanity Fair.

Wednesday April 22nd – San Francisco
Live, in-studio interview: KGO 810AM Ronn Owens Radio – 11:00am PT
Talk, Q&A and book signing: The Commonwealth Club, 595 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94105, 12:00pm PT
Talk, Q&A and book signing: Book Passage, Ferry Building, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA 94111, 6:00pm PT

Thursday April 23rd – Portland
Talk, Q&A and book signing: Powell’s Books, 1005 W. Burnside Street, Portland, OR, 7:30pm PT
(Christian will speak about the book for about 30 minutes, followed by questions from the audience and a book signing.)

Tuesday April 28th – Boulder
Talk, Q&A and book signing: Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO 80302, 7:30pm MT
(Christian will speak about the book for about 30 minutes, followed by questions from the audience and a book signing.)

Wednesday April 29th – Denver
Talk, Q&A and book signing: Tattered Cover, 2526 E Colfax Ave., Denver, CO, 7:00pm MT
(Christian will speak about the book for about 30 minutes, followed by questions from the audience and a book signing.)

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In addition to these appearances, Mr. Hageseth will appear with me at Malaprop's Bookstore on May 22, 7 PM. Believe it or not, it will be the first time we've ever met in person. We wrote the book entirely via phone and computer.

In the coming weeks, I'll probably blog about this book as it garners some more media attention.

But I hope to be back tomorrow with some cool news about one of my books.

Picked for Best American Mystery Stories 2015 anthology!

I finally arrived home a few days ago after being away for three-and-a-half months and have been busy trying to dig myself out from under emails and to-dos. Now that the contract's cleared, I can announce something I've kept under wraps for a while: one of my short stories was chosen for the  forthcoming Best American Mystery Stories 2015 anthology. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will pub the anthology later this year, in October 2015. As many of you no doubt know, Otto Penzler is the longtime series editor; author James Patterson is the guest editor who made this year's picks.

The story is "Harm and Hammer," which first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine back in October 2014. (I first talked about that story here.) I'm happy because I've always been fond of this piece, which is about a woman in witness protection who takes up a strange hobby to atone for her past. If you want to check it out, you can download the ebook for free at this link, which will stay live for only a week. Please grab it while you can.

I received this excellent news back in February but was too mired in family stuff to fully appreciate it. But I am very grateful. My thanks to my editors at AHMM, Mr. Penzler, and Mr. Patterson. See you in October.