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Saturday night at the NMBA Banquet, I was thrilled to learn that I had one won two awards, Best Cookbook for Cuisines of the Southwest (Golden West Publishers), and Best Novel–Adventure or Drama for Avenging Victorio (Rio Grande Books). It’s just my 15 seconds of fame, but it sure felt great! Time constraints prevented me from delivering my winner’s speech: "Because of these awards, I am postponing my retirement because I want to spend less time with my family." 😉
The keynote speaker at the New Mexico Book Awards was David Morrell, and I really enjoyed sitting at the same table with him. He’s the guy who invented the character Rambo in his book First Blood (1972). While working on the book, he was drawing a blank on the name of his protagonist when his wife came back from shopping with some heirloom apples that are grown in upstate New York. The variety is called ‘Rambo’, and the rest of the story is history. Visit David at his site, here. He lives in Santa Fe, so we’ll get together soon.
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