My novel To Love Mercy has now won five awards – most recently the Eric Hoffer Award (“Notable Book”), and not one but two Indie Excellence Awards (“Finalist” in two categories, Historical Fiction and Multicultural Fiction). I’m proud, pleased and a bit perplexed.

These contests give small-press (like me) and self-published authors a shot at becoming less obscure, and for that God bless ‘em. For the price of the entry fee, usually around $40 though sometimes approaching $100, we get the chance to outshine other entrants and raise our profiles.

But none of these contests is the Pulitzer or the National Book Award. I mean, who ever heard of the “DIY Convention”? And so far I’ve been a bridesmaid but never a bride – To Love Mercy has been a runner-up, a finalist, an honorable mention, but has yet to win a first place.

I was overjoyed at the first victory, but by the third or fourth I was getting a bit bummed. Then I realized there’s strength in numbers. Five wins of any kind is probably as prestigious as one first prize.

How reputable are these contests? It’s hard to tell (though it may not matter). They don’t identify the judges, and at least two contest sponsors – a firm called JM Northern Media LLC and a firm called JPX Media – seem to be in it primarily for the money.

JM Northern Media, run by a former music journalist named Bruce Haring (I Googled him), sponsors the DIY Convention, the Hollywood Book Festival and the New York Book Festival. It gets a “Not Recommended - Charges Fee” rating from Preditors & Editors, a fabulous writer-scam website (www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/). Nevertheless, I’ve entered all three of their contests. I’m a winner in DIY, struck out in Hollywood, and am pending in New York.

JPX Media is run by an Arizona PR firm and also sponsors the USABookNews awards, of which I just learned. I missed the deadline for this one or I’d probably have applied too. Preditors lists nothing on JPX.

The Eric Hoffer Award, formerly called Writers Notes (glad they changed name to EH!), is sponsored by a firm called Hopewell Publications LLC. Hopewell, Titusville NJ, is run by an author named Christopher Klim, author (I Googled him too) of several books including a “mainstream adventure-comedy” with the great title Jesus Lives in Trenton. Although apparently run for profit, this contest seems to be the most reputable, altruistic and prestigious of those entered so far. It gives its winners a lot more support (stickers, website graphics, library mailings) than JM and JPX do. Preditors lists nothing on Hopewell, Eric Hoffer or Writers Notes.

ReaderViews is a thriving website run by a nice lady in Texas named Irene Watson. I’ve been aware of them for several years. I sent Irene To Love Mercy for review and she sent it to a reviewer who hated it. She contacted me out of concern and asked whether I really wanted to go through with the review. I told her there must be some mistake, just look at all those five-star Amazon reviews. Irene said she’d find a different reviewer. The second reviewer, Cyndy Zoch, wrote a rave you can read at www.readerviews.com/ReviewJosephToLoveMercy.html

ReaderViews also posted Cyndy Zoch’s review on Amazon (www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0974478539/sr=8-1/qid=1177944780/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/104-8044709-7112717?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&qid=1177944780&sr=8-1)
– a very nice service indeed — and entered To Love Mercy in their contest on the basis of that great review. They’re a for-profit company but I’ve enjoyed great treatment from them.

Names mean a lot. “Eric Hoffer” sounds a lot better than “DIY Convention.” “Winner, New York Book Festival” has a great ring too. If I win the New York Book Festival, you can bet I’m going to trumpet it to the skies, even though it’s from the slightly suspect JM Northern Media.

Several other pending contests could be big too. My publisher Patrick Grace entered To Love Mercy in two contests. One is the Publishers Marketing Assn.’s “Ben Franklin Awards,” which carry a great deal of prestige among independent publishers (the award has a great name too). Patrick’s company, Publishers Place Inc., is a PMA member. Patrick also entered To Love Mercy in the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards. ForeWord (”Reviews of Good Books Independently Published”) is a respected magazine aimed principally (I think) at librarians. These contests probably are more prestigious than those previously entered. Both are pending.

No award to date is as meaningful as the fact that my novel has gone into a second printing. Believe it or not, most novels — even those from Simon & Schuster — don’t do as well or sell as many copies, as To Love Mercy has since it was published one year ago.

The 22 reviews averaging five stars that are posted to date on Amazon (www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0974478539/sr=8-1/qid=1177944780/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/104-8044709-7112717?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&qid=1177944780&sr=8-1) may be the most meaningful of all. Even though (or maybe because) they’re written by amateurs, Amazon reviews really cut ice with readers.

Even so … just once, I’d like to win a first prize.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. To buy Mother’s Day gifts of To Love Mercy signed by Ye Author, please visit http://tolovemercy.com/to_love_mercy_online_sales.html. You can also view all five contest winners and the Hoffer Award while you’re there (click on “About the Book”).

P.P.S. Not to beat Don Imus to death (he’s dead already), but I misspoke on two subjects in prior postings:

– Federal regulation of satellite radio: Unless XM and Sirius have a very long cable from that satellite overhead, they’re using licensed, regulated spectrum just like ABC, CBS and NBC. Thanks to intrepid correspondents Dave Beal, Tom Woodall Paul Baker for correcting me.

– Terminology: No. 1 Son Sam Joseph points out my misuse of the term “censorship”: “It’s only censorship if the government stops Imus from talking,” notes Sam. Thanks a lot, kid. And here I’ve been telling you all these years that I’m the Word Man.

I say alive. I predict you’ll be hearing Imus on XM Satellite Radio any day now. I’ll bet you a frothy ale they’re in negotiations as I write.

Last week I said Don Imus belonged in the nethermost circle of hell for calling Rutgers’ near-champion women’s basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s”. But XM may be the next best place. Don’s soulmate Howard Stern is on Sirius. XM probably would love to match Howard slur for slur. XM already has Opie & Anthony but Don would add firepower.

My objection to Don was that he was using the public airwaves to spew his venom. The airwaves, O gentle reader, belong to us; the broadcasters merely license their use. But XM, Sirius, cable TV and the Internet do not rely on licensed spectrum. So go with my blessing, Don. You deserve your freedom of speech, and your following deserves you. Just don’t force me to listen.

(But my friend Dick Foster makes an interesting comment: “I used to listen to [Imus]. I quickly learned that he is very, very smart. That is, he was not only a shock-jock, there was more to him than that, although of course he was the gross character that he was made out to be. A very important part of interviewing, be [it] in journalism or in psychotherapy or in other activities, is asking good questions. The information you get depends in large measure on how to elicit it. The best question-asker I ever heard was the late Peter Lisagor of the Chicago Daily News. Imus was not as good as that, but his questions were absolutely terrific. Questions, that is, that he would ask politicians on his show, like Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman and others, especially during the business of Clinton and Monica.”)

I imagine the firestorm of reaction that ultimately led to his firings by CBS and MSNBC caught Don by surprise. He’d been making similar comments for years, decades, and getting away with it. This time he crossed the same line and got fired.

What happened? I’m going to stick my neck way out now and propose that … the line moved.

Consider: We have a woman and a black man running for President for the first time in history and both have a shot at victory. Consider: Legislatures in one border and two southern states (MD, VA, NC) have passed resolutions of “profound regret” for their states’ roles in slavery. Consider: The pissed-off white male, so well represented in the national dialogue, may be losing ground as Bush Cheney & Co. prepare to exit. (I hear ratings are down not only for Imus, the ur-pissed-off-white-man, but the McLaughlin Group and other pissed-off white men as well. We can only pray for an eclipse for Ann Coulter, my personal candidate for honorary pissed-off white man.)

Can’t you just feel, ever so slightly, the zeitgeist shifting?

Finally, be it noted for the record that (1) I called for Don Imus to be taken out and shot and, a few days later, he was; (2) I called for a national time of atonement on slavery, and shortly thereafter the legislatures of Maryland, Virginia (and now North Carolina) passed resolutions expressing “profound regret” for those states’ roles in slavery; (3) I sent Jim Webb $250 in the last moments of the campaign and not only got him elected but won the Senate for the Democrats too. Then Webb told George Bush to stick his nose in someone else’s business. Is this a great country or what?

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Come join me this weekend! I’ll be chatting and signing books at –

– The Bethesda (MD) Book Fair, Saturday, 1-4 p.m. I’ll be near the Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh Street just east of Wisconsin Avenue.

– The Kensington (MD) Book Fair, Sunday, 12-5 p.m. I’ll be near Kensington Row Bookshop, 3786 Howard Avenue in the Antiques District.

I never listen to Don Imus. I think he and his soulmate Howard Stern debase the public culture and they ought to be taken out and shot. I’m ever so slightly less certain whether they ought to be taken off the air though. Although I don’t think the free speech issue is substantial, it ought not to be dismissed casually. So let’s follow this and see where it leads.

Does taking guys like Don and Howard off the air amount to censorship? In my opinion, the party who pays the costs and benefits from the revenues, i.e. the broadcaster, bears the ultimate responsibility in this matter. It is CBS or NBC or WFAN or Sirius or MSNBC who chooses to air Imus and Stern and their ilk, or not. These broadcasters are responsible for degrading the public discourse, or not. And they bear responsibility for the consequences of doing so, should there be any.

The broadcasters make their choices based principally on economics. Fine, that’s their right; it’s their money. If we the people loathe and detest what they do, fine, that’s our right. If we boycott them and withhold our money from them, fine, that’s our right too. If we pressure our FCC and our Congress to take such matters in hand, pass laws and regulations against poisoning the public discourse — as was the case up to a decade or two ago, then something changed, I’m not sure what — fine, that’s our right and, I’d add, our duty as citizens. I’m willing to then leave it to the courts to decide whether such laws and regulations violate the First Amendment or not.

Your right to throw a punch ends where my nose begins. The right to free speech is not the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. Imus and Stern can stand out on the corner of 42nd and Broadway and exercise their free speech right as easily as over the public airwaves. Denying them the public airwaves does not deny their free speech right nor, in my opinion, does it amount to censorship. But the public airwaves belong to you and me, not to CBS or NBC or WFAN, although it never seems that way. If the American public deems the public behavior of the Don Imuses of the world unacceptable, it’s our right to petition to have such junk taken off the airwaves, which, in case you forgot, belong to us.

I’m an ardent First Amendment-ist — a card-carrying member of the ACLU for God’s sake — but you see where I’m coming from. I believe the Imuses and Sterns are in fact yelling fire in a crowded theater, that theater being the public airwaves. If they must speak to that audience that wants to hear them, I say let them do so somewhere other than in that theater — which, need I remind you yet again, belongs to us.

But what about Sirius and MSNBC? They aren’t using the public airwaves; their cables and satellites belong to them (though public subsidies, tax breaks, etc., made such ownership possible in the first place). That admittedly makes some difference. But in my opinion, it doesn’t take away we the people’s right to petition, object, boycott, picket, not patronize and otherwise show our displeasure with Sirius and MSNBC, by putting our money where our mouths are.

The argument is made that there’s an audience for Imus, Stern & Co. and it’s censorship to deny this audience its entertainment. Sure there’s an audience for these guys. There’s an audience for Nazi hate talk too, and for snuff films, and for bestiality pornography. (I got two emails within the past few days inviting me to participate in such a website; wonder what they know about me.)

There’s a sociological argument that dudes like Don and Howard offer society a safety valve for otherwise unacceptable thoughts and behavior, thereby performing a public service. Can’t speak for you, but that certainly ain’t the case for me.

Well then: Isn’t it hypocritical to single Imus out for this incident when he has been guilty over the years of so many similar offenses? This viewpoint has nothing to do with either free speech or sociology, but it does have to do with another unattractive form of public behavior known as the lynching. Scapegoat alert! Don Imus is fair game! Let’s pile on!

When this happened to Martha Stewart — not previously one of my favorite public figures — I actually was moved to sympathy. While it’s unlikely I’ll come to feel sympathy for Imus — ever — the present spectacle does carry a whiff of hypocrisy.

That said, my concern over the relentless coarsening of our public discourse and our lives outweighs my concern over this particular public flogging. I mean, calling a bunch of near-champion athletes “nappy-headed hos” — then having one’s producer chime in with the ineffable “jigaboos” — is simply disgusting. These poor women were just minding their own business when Don Imus, armed and dangerous, took them out in a drive-by shooting.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Mark your calendar! Sunday, April 22, is the Kensington (MD) Book Fair. I’ll be there all day, signing copies of To Love Mercy and chatting. The fair, a/k/a International Day of the Book, takes place in picturesque Olde Town Kensington amid the antique shops along Howard Avenue just east of Connecticut Avenue.

P.P.S. And come to Politics & Prose this Saturday (6 p.m.) to hear David O. Stewart talking about “The Summer of 1787,” his readable new history of the creation of the Constitution from Simon & Schuster. David is my fellow member of the Holey Roaders, writers group par excellence. P&P is at 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008.

We saw the fox behind the house this morning and for the first time he posed for his picture.

We had searched for nine months for the house we live in and I had little heart left for the enterprise. After eight months, even Carol began losing hope we’d ever find what we were looking for. It had to have a view but it had to be close in. Just one more month, she said.

We walked into this house — in Maryland just six blocks over the District of Columbia line — and looked out the huge living room windows. At that time the woods were a solid wall of green summer leaves. It took just 10 minutes to decide.

In 1981, when we bought the house, the woods stretched 3-4 blocks, all the way to Wisconsin Avenue. Since then three large luxury condominium buildings have been built on the so-called Bergdoll Tract, the 67 acres that once fronted on Wisconsin. But the creek and its small canyon still separate us from the big buildings and these acres are parkland, never to be developed. When the trees go into full summer leaf, 1-2 weeks from now, we won’t see the condo buildings again until November.

We first spotted the fox maybe a year or two after we moved in. He was on the far side of the creek, so distant we weren’t sure we actually were looking at a fox. Since then he’s showed himself about a half-dozen times. The most recent time, we were both standing in the family room downstairs. Two streaks of fur shot past. It was the fox chasing a rabbit — right on our deck, 10-15 feet from where we were standing. The show lasted a split second but we both saw it.

This time, though, the fox remained still for 5 or 10 minutes. When Carol first spotted him, he was in repose, probably still asleep, curled up like a bushy red dog. It was just past 8 a.m. There’d been a little rain during the night but now the sun was burning it off, leaving a faint mist rising off the forest floor where he was laying.

I shot pictures through the windows. Then I opened the door to the upstairs deck, as quietly as I could, and went out to shoot more pictures without the glass in the way. The fox opened his eyes, startled, then glanced around casually. He didn’t look directly at me but I am quite sure he knew I was there.

Yet he stayed there, turning his head occasionally, alert, for at least 5 minutes while I photographed him. Then he got up and trotted off leisurely. Yes, foxes trot.

I say “fox” but obviously there must be more than one fox in our woods. There also are great big turtles, once-in-a-while hummingbirds and a plethora of spiders, including the occasional wolf spider. Wolf spiders make great pets. They are enormous, for one thing, and their behavior is fascinating. Sam kept one in a jar for months when he was a kid. We called him Wolfie. There aren’t as many bunny rabbits as there used to be. I think we have the fox to thank for that.

There are whitetail deer too. When I first moved to the Washington area from Chicago in 1969, it was a thrill to spot the rare whitetail in Rock Creek Park, in the city. The moment they sensed you, they fled. Now the deer have utterly lost their fear of people. I am not a biologist nor an animal behaviorist, but I find this remarkable and scary too. It’s obviously learned behavior. It obviously overrides these animals’ instincts. It now characterizes every deer, at least those that live in this urban area. And it occurred over a time period of just 20 years. This goes against everything I thought I knew about wild animals.

I am happy to have communed with the fox today. Thanks, Mister Fox, for gladdening my morning. But please don’t do it again. If you become as bold as the deer, I will be troubled indeed.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. The Summer of 1787 is David O. Stewart’s new book that brings to vivid life the creation of the Constitution. David is one of the stalwarts of the Holey Roaders writers group, of which I am also privileged to be a member. We read Summer in draft a year or two ago and now it’s published. Last night Simon & Schuster hosted a book party in the lovely Georgetown home of David’s friends Michael Nussbaum and Gloria Weissberg, where I had a grand time and drank way too much white wine. This is all by way of urging you to buy David’s fine, eminently readable new book, the ISBN number of which is 0-7432-8692-8.

P.P.S. Happy Pesach! Happy Easter! Happy Russian Easter!