By Kathy Crain

Hello, Thriller Readers and Writers!

I’m Kathy Crain, a glass artist from Crain Studio on San Juan Island, WA, and I have been doing this art for over 45 years. The ITW Thriller Award was created in 2005. During the time I’ve been creating the Thriller Awards there’s only been one change: on the 10th anniversary of ITW, the logo was updated. 

It all started when a dear friend, author David Dun, was cruising around the San Juan Islands, WA, writing his novel The Black Silent. My husband and I would get together with David and his wife Laura for drinks and dinner. One evening David mentioned that ITW wanted to have a thriller award presentation and did I happen to know someone (hint, hint) that might design an award? 

That got my creative juices flowing. After much thought I hit on the idea of creating a glass book. The wooden book came to mind as a way to protect the fragile corners of the glass—the perfect base.

When I first created this design, the glass book represented paperbacks and the wooden book represented hardback books. Nowadays, there’s e-books and audiobooks. Who knew what was coming?

Each award is unique, one of a kind. There are many steps to their creation:

1. The first step entails precise cutting of sheet art glass. Each glass book has 10 layers of clear glass for the interior to represent the pages, and clear and black iridescent glass that represents the book binding and cover.  
2. The black glass layer is then sand-carved with the latitude/longitude lines of the world (representing the international in ITW).
3. Each layer of glass is then cleaned, stacked in the kiln, and fired to a very high temperature to melt all the layers together. Due to the thickness of the glass and the high temperatures used, there’s an annealing (cooling) process, which takes up to 5 days in the kiln. This stabilizes the glass.
4. Once the glass is cooled, I sand-carve the ITW logo in the very top clear layer. Then gold leaf is applied. 
5. Next I create the wooden book. It is made of Meranti mahogany, a wood found mainly in Southeast Asia. I start out with a very long board. Each book is cut to length, then I router the front edge round, and the lip around the side and back to look like a book binding. Also, a deep hole is carved on the top of the book to hold the glass book.
6. The wooden book is then sanded and varnished with eight layers of clear finish. The brass plaque is engraved, then bent to fit the front round edge, and attached with brass screws.
7. The final step is where the glass and the wood book meet. I use a method called cold fusion. The entire process from cutting to finish takes around 2 1/2 months.  

It’s always such a thrill to open the kiln and see which colors have been produced. I use a rainbow iridescent glass for the book covers so as I mix and layer the glass, they produce their own unique colors. There’s literally never two the same.  

It’s my hope that these awards give as much of a thrill to the recipients as they are for me to create. I feel like this unique glass form represents each of the creative writers of ITW. No two authors or books are the same, ever.   

Enjoy this year’s ThrillerFest!

Kathy