Bookstore Co-Owner Wins Literary Honor : Ventura’s Edward Elrod receives the American Bookseller Assn.’s international scholarship award for his essays.

Edward Elrod, co-owner of the Ventura Bookstore, is the 1994 national winner of the American Bookseller Assn.’s prestigious Charley Haslam International Scholarship. It was presented to him on Memorial Day at a Book and Author Breakfast that also featured talks by Bishop Desmond Tutu, Pulitzer Prize-winning author E. Annie Proulx and novelist Joyce Carol Oates.

About 1,500 people attended the breakfast, one of dozens of dazzling literary events at the American Booksellers’ annual convention held Saturday to Tuesday at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The much sought-after award is open to booksellers 40 years or younger and with at least two years of experience who submit a series of essays demonstrating knowledge and creativity. Elrod’s entry included essays on staging author appearances and on censorship.

As the scholarship winner, Elrod attended the weeklong International Congress of Young Booksellers in the Netherlands to exchange ideas and information with book people from all over the world. A 35-year resident of Ventura County, Elrod has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a minor in German literature from UC San Diego. He also studied biochemistry, German and Dutch in Germany.

At least 30,000 booksellers and literary toilers of all stripes crowded the aisles of the convention center at this year’s ABA event to shop at the exhibit booths of thousands of publishers, distributors and book-related businesses. I spotted Ventura folks too numerous to name wandering the vast exhibit halls and noted that Kathryn Cocquyt of Simi Valley and Joline Godfrey of Ojai were two featured authors who were autographing their works.

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President Bill Clinton is a great fan of author Walter Mosley, whose first Easy Rawlins’ mystery “Devil in a Blue Dress” is soon to be a major motion picture featuring Denzel Washington. Mosley will sign his fourth Rawlins’ mystery “Black Betty” tonight at 7 in Chaucer’s Bookstore, 3321 State St., Santa Barbara.

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Margaret Maron will sign “Shooting at Loons” at noon Friday and Frank Thomas will sign “Sherlock Holmes and the Masquerade Murders” at 1 p.m. Saturday in Mysteries to Die For, 2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks.

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James Daniel Quinn of Oxnard will sign the paperback edition of “The Art of Survival” published by University Editions at 5 p.m. in Steele’s Studio Gallery, Fisherman’s Wharf, 2741 S. Victoria Ave., Oxnard.

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Leeanne Krusemark will conduct a Beginners Guide to Getting Published seminar from 2:30 to 5 p.m. Saturday at Ventura College, 4667 Telegraph Road. The fee is $48. Call 654-6459 or 378-1500, Ext. 6459.