Miss Crankypants has never been prone to writer’s jealousy. After all, she knows that her stuff is far superior to any drivel other writers (even the clever ones) produce. But when AWARDS SEASON hits, the gloves come off.
Miss CP is sure the award system in publishing is a lot like the football BCS playoffs. It’s a lot of hooey just to sell more tickets or in our case, books. To prove it, Miss CP points to this year’s National Book Awards for fiction. Now most of the time the judges (who live on the nearest exo-planet orbiting a star light-years away) pick a book no one has heard of, has no discernible plot and uses a lot of big fancy words to make readers feel bad and rush to their online dictionary.
But this year these judges couldn’t make up their minds. There were so many esoteric and indecipherable novels to choose from! Their solution was not to give the prize to anybody. Which doesn’t sell many books, by the way. The judges might have done better if they’d found a novel written about Mitt Romney’s dog.
In the inspirational market, all the awards are named for somebody’s wife. Thus, we have the Christy’s, the Carols, the Ritas. What’s next? The Geraldine Awards? Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

All these awards give Miss Crankypants a headache. Especially since her head is about to explode anyway, from jealousy. The fact that the awards folks have consistently overlooked her books is a tragedy. A train wreck. Worse than Obamacare! She’s thinking about sending whoopee cushions to each and every nominee. Every time these oh-so-precious writers sit down, they’ll hear Miss CP razzing them. And if that doesn’t strike the fear into these trophy winners, she’ll send the 30 pound cat.