WINNING WEIRD: Laguna Beach author Theodore Taylor,...

WINNING WEIRD: Laguna Beach author Theodore Taylor, above, says it was like the Oscars at the Mystery Writers of America banquet in New York last week. Best-selling author Mary Higgins Clark, celebrity presenter, opened the envelope and read the names of the five nominees for an “Edgar”--a bust of Edgar Allan Poe--in the young adult fiction category. Taylor, 70, won it, for his novel “The Weirdo.” . . . “It was a thrill just to be in that group of masters,” he says.