Woo hoo! Kellye’s second book, Hollywood Ending, is out on Wednesday (August 8)! It takes place during Awards Season, a three-month stretch that kicks off with the Independent Spirit Award nominations in November and culminates with the grand dame of them all, the Oscars, in February/early March. In honor of Kellye’s new book, we’re sharing our favorite awards show.

Kellye Garrett

Like Lisa below, I’ve actually been to a couple of awards shows. I was a seat-filler for the Emmy’s once after grad school and my day job puts on an amazing awards show every year. I love awards show so much that I created my own for Hollywood Ending. (Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the Silver Sphere Awards.) In real life, I love different shows for different reasons: I love the Oscars for the star power. The Grammy’s for the performances. The Golden Globes for the laid back vibe. The Emmy’s because I used to write TV and it’s cool to recognize people I worked with once upon a time. It’s so hard to pick just one. Who doesn’t love any opportunity for Hollywood’s elite to get dressed, get drunk, and get tiny gold statues that usually mean an extra zero in their paycheck and an extra line in their obituary?

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Lisa Q. Mathews

Weirdly, I have some experience attending award shows. (No, all you doubters out there, I was NOT a paid seat-filler and, sadly, no, I was not nominated for anything that I know of.) I was formerly married to an ad exec, so it was part of his job to attend and I was the eager plus-one.  No Oscars, unfortunately (I prefer the Golden Globes anyway, because they include TV as well as film and all the stars are drunk.) But I went to a ton of CMAs (Country Music Awards–black denim, million-dollar boots, and rhinestones required) and the ESPYs (snooze city).

Here’s what I noticed about the nominees and honorees: They are all either much, much taller or shorter than us. (The men are shorter, except for the basketball and football players, and the women are taller.)  Oh, and much, much thinner. Observation Two: The second they lock the auditorium doors so the audience members won’t get up from their seats and rustle around and ruin the all-important telecast, you WILL need to use the Little Stars Room STAT. And you will never, ever see yourself on TV, no matter how hard you try.

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 Ellen Byron

I’m not a big awards show person. Despite the fact I’ve been writing for television for almost twenty-five years, I never watch the Emmys. With the same shows nominated year after year, or shows I have interest in nominated, I find them a big old bore. I do watch the Oscars, but purely out of habit. I haven’t been invested in a winner in years and find a lot of the self-congratulatory attitudes of the participants annoying.

There is one awards show I love to death, though. The Tonys. The singing, the dancing, the acting! When I lived in New York, Tony night was practically a local holiday. If you had your windows open, you got the show in stereo, because it was playing in every apartment around you. The Tonys inspire me to sing and dance around the house like a veritable nominee myself – but only when the family has left for the day!

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Marla Cooper

I’m going to go with the classic: The Oscars! I sometimes enjoy the Tony Awards, but it almost invariably makes me jealous of all the great Broadway shows I didn’t get to see. (That said, I’m all-in on the Tony’s when Neil Patrick Harris is hosting.) With the Oscars, though, it doesn’t matter if you’ve seen the movies or not; you know who the people are, and it’s fun to see what everyone’s wearing. Bucket-list bonus extra: attending the Oscars in person! I don’t know what I’d wear, but it would sure be fun to go out in a dress that costs more than most wedding gowns. And don’t even get me started on the gift bags. Kellye, congrats on your new release! Everyone else, go get a copy and get ready for some vicarious awards-show fun!

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Cynthia Kuhn

The Academy Awards are my Super Bowl! Every year, we turn off the phone, bring out the delicious snacks, and settle in to watch from beginning to end. I love the whole thing: the announcement of nominees, the media buzz leading up to the event, the red carpet walks, the interviews, the anticipation of nominees, the naming of the winners, and the speeches. And whenever they start talking about the power of storytelling, it moves me. Yes! So much yes! Stories matter!

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What about you? What’s your favorite awards show? Drop us a note in the comments below!

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