CWA Awards and London Fun

Annamaria on Monday

I am in London, where I travelled for the CWA banquet and a chance to meet up with some friends.  But the huge highlight of the trip was attending the CWA Dagger awards ceremony with Leye Adenle, one of Sunshine Noir's two (out of the six!!!) nominees for best short story.

Stan warned us that the affair was very posh, so Leye and I did our best to make a good impression.

The tables were set with place cards that put us pals opposite each other.  

When I picked up my phone to snap this picture through the candles..

I found Leye taking the same photo of me.

The competition for the our category was stiff, and the award went to LC Tyler, but we agreed that our Sunshine hotties snagging two of the six spots was a huge honour. (This spelling courtesy of my laptop knowing that I am in the UK at the moment.)

I noted that of the six nominees for the International dagger...

...the only Nordic entry won,...

...but I was encouraged to note that four of the six nominees were hot clime writers--two Italians and two Spaniards.

A huge THANK YOU to the delightful Ali Karim for the picture of
 Leye and me above.

I spent the ensuing two days in my usual guise, as a Nerd in Paradise, researching at the British Library:

A few of the front page images that grace the walls of the Newsroom in the library

Three of the four volumes of bound copies of British East African newspapers
that were at my disposal.

You know you're a nerd when you look at a huge book full of these and say,
"Yum."