Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (EQMM) honors authors each year as voted upon by readers, hence the name, Readers Choice Award.
Recipients include many of the most popular authors of thrillers and mysteries.
[1][2] Awards are bestowed in April of the following year, coinciding with the annual Mystery Writers of America conference, at an informal ceremony sponsored by Dell Publishing.
Leigh Lundin (under the pseudonym L. Leigh[4]) in 2006 became the first first-time writer to take first place in a major Ellery Queen award.
Dale Andrews, a student of the Ellery Queen canon, became the first to place with an Ellery Queen story.