The Rockbridge Regional Library in Lexington will host two authors next Wednesday, May 21, who have both won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author.
Henry Wise is the 2025 Edgar Award winner for his book “Holy City,” Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024. With Wise will be the 2019 Edgar winner, James McLaughlin, author of “Bearskin,” Ecco Press, 2018.
The event next Wednesday, a conversation with the authors about their books and writing, will begin at 6 p.m. The authors will be available for book signing after the program. All three books are available for loan at Rockbridge Regional Libraries.
The Edgar Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers Association, are judged by volunteer committees of professional writers. The association is dedicated to promoting higher regard for crime writing and recognition and respect for those who write within the genre. Both writers have been further recognized nationally in press articles, recommended reading lists, and other awards.
Wise is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and the University of Mississippi MFA Program. A writer across multiple genres, his poetry has been published in Shenandoah, Radar Poetry, Clackamas Literary Review, Nixes Mate Review, and elsewhere. His nonfiction and photography have appeared in Southern Cultures. “Holy City” is his first novel. In review magazine Booklist, his writing in “Holy City” was characterized as “strongly evocative of its unique setting, redolent with the sights and sounds of smalltown Virginia,” and states that “Fans of both Southern and crime fiction will welcome to the genre, this new voice, a hybrid of Faulkner and Grisham.”
McLaughlin grew up in the mountains of Virginia and now lives in the mountains of Utah. He holds law and MFA degrees from the University of Virginia. A 2018 Kirkus review stated that “Bearskin” was “equal to the best that country noir has to offer.” His essays and fiction have appeared in River Teeth, Camas, Portland Review, Clackamas Literary Review, and elsewhere. His essay “¡No Pasaran! Rage and ORVs” was chosen as a Notable Essay of 2003 in The Best American Essays, 2004. He published a second novel, “Panther Gap,” with Flatiron Books, in 2023.
