David L. Goodis Award - Ken Bruen
Ken Bruen is an Irish writer of hard-boiled and noir crime fiction. Bruen is the recipient of many awards: The Shamus Award in 2007 (The Dramatist) and 2004 (The Guards), both for Best P.I. Hardcover; The Macavity Award in 2005 (The Killing of the Tinkers) and 2010 (Tower, cowritten by Reed Farrel Coleman), both for Best Mystery Novel; The Barry Award in 2007 (Priest) for Best British Crime Novel; the Grand Prix de Literature Policiere in 2007 (Priest) for Best International Crime Novel. He was also a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 2004 (The Guards) and 2008 (Priest), both for Best Novel.
Jay & Deen Kogan Award: Dennis McMillian Publications
Dennis McMillian Publications has published the most hardcore hard-boiled, mystery, modern fiction, graphic short stories since 1983. The company has produced his legendary editions for books by Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Jon Jackson, Kent Harrington, Gary Phillips, Kent Anderson, and many others. Since then, Dennis McMillian Publications books are highly sought after collectors’ items. Accoding to their now defunct site, “As with all American enterprises of novelty and note, Dennis McMillan Publications effervesced from the three great moral wellsprings of Modem Times: Fortuity, Desperation, and Ennui. The Fortuitous finding of the very scarce vanity-published American edition of the Australian mystery writer Arthur Upfield’s first book, The House of Cain (Dorrance, 1929), allowed me to assuage both the first twinges of Desperation and an ever-present Ennui brought on by my departure from the tempest-in-a-teapot existence of academia. In short, once I realized that the satisfaction I thought I would derive from doing pharmacological research was as illusory and had about as much chance of being realized as winning the lottery, I was at loose ends, casting about for something I might actually enjoy doing while still surviving the larger tempest that quenches our fires, buffets us and beats us down.”
Reprinting small trade editions of scarce and desirable mysteries and publishing small print runs of true first editions of writers I admire has allowed me to live wherever I've wanted (an examination of the title pages of the books I've published over the past sixteen years will confirm my gazetteer-like wanderings) and has brought me into contact with an erudite and (for the most part!) good-hearted group of people trying to communicate with their fellowes - to give their readers some ease, enjoyment, solace, or consolation through their creative artifice, wrought from a common pain.
Dennis McMillian has been a “serious” book collector since 1975, when he discovered that certain Philip Jose Farmer titles thathe had not been able to locate were worth more than their cover price(s).
