The Quill Book Awards were announced this morning and Ed was not impressed.
I?m wondering just what point this particular awards ceremony serves.
The winners are ?feted at a gala event on October 10.? But with voting open to anyone, this is nothing less than the People?s Choice Awards of literature
Call me a manic democratizer, but why not have book awards where the voting is open to anyone? There are already plenty of awards selected by well-qualified committees — why not let the unwashed masses have a turn? The argument could be made that the people have voted with their wallets, but as far as I’m concerned, the more hoopla, fun and even, yes, fluff there is around reading, the better.
What if E! or Bravo covered the Quill Awards’ red carpet? Wouldn’t it be cool waiting to see if Kathy Griffin would make an obnoxious comment about JK Rowling’s hair color, if Isaac Mizrahi suprisingly grabbed the boobies of not Scarlett Johanssen but say, Doris Kearns Goodwin? If E.L. Doctorow, clad in a tux, came face to face with Joan Rivers? I guarantee you it would be more exciting than Book TV.
This week I watched the Teen Choice Awards — with a handful of creative writing grad students, no less — and while it was a corporate-controlled crapfest, it was still a fun crapfest. That is, until K-Fed started to sing, but that’s another story.
Anyway, I’m taking the opportunity to vote for Julie Powell for Debut Author, who is (I think) the only blog-turned-book nominee, for her yearlong cooking quest Julie and Julia. Voting for the Quill Awards is open now.
