Summer/Fall 2009

Western Writers of America announced the winners of the 2008 Spur Awards at their annual convention, held in June at the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City. The winners included Thomas Cobb, Shavetail, Best Western Long Novel; Linda Peavy (and Ursula Smith), Full-Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School—Basketball Champions of the World, Best Western Nonfiction Contemporary; and Stan Lynde, Vendetta Canyon, Best Western Audiobook. The finalists included Win Blevins, Dreams Beneath Your Feet, finalist for Best Western Short Novel; Robert Boswell (and David Schweidel), What Men Call Treasure: The Search for Gold at Victorio Peak, finalist for Best Western Nonfiction Contemporary; J.P.S. Brown, Wolves at Our Door, finalist for Best Long Novel; Lin Enger, Undiscovered Country, finalist for Best First Novel; and Sid Fleischman, The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West, finalist for Best Western Juvenile Nonfiction.

The 22nd annual Bram Stoker Awards, sponsored by the Horror Writers Association, were announced at a banquet at the 2009 Stoker Awards Weekend in June in Burbank, Calif. The winners included Stephen King, Just After Sunset, Superior Achievement in a Collection, and Lisa Mannetti, The Gentling Box, Superior Achievement in a First Novel. King was also nominated for Superior Achievement in a Novel for Duma Key, and Amy Wallace (and Del Howison and Scott Bradley) was nominated for Superior Achievement in Nonfiction for The Book of Lists: Horror.

Elizabeth Ayres received the 2009 Feature Column Award from the MDDC Press Association for her essay “Sea Nettles,” originally published in the Maryland-based newspaper The Enterprise. The MDDC Editorial Contest recognizes excellence in the newspapers of Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C.

Judy Light Ayyildiz won the poetry competition at the 2009 Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival for “View from the Top Floor, Istanbul, October downpour 2008.” The festival, held April 19 in Raleigh, N.C., was sponsored by the Gregg Museum of Art & Design of North Carolina State University and the American-Turkish Association of North Carolina.

Ruth Bass and Milton Bass received Honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters from Westfield State College in Massachusetts for achievements in journalism and the community. The doctorates were presented at the college’s commencement on May 16, 2009.

Eric Jay Dolin’s Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America received the John Lyman Book Award for U.S. Maritime History, given by the North American Society for Oceanic History.

You Are Not Forgotten: A Family’s Quest for Truth and the Founding of the League of Families, by Carol Jose (and Evelyn Grubb) and with a foreword by Henry Kissinger, received the gold medal prize for History in the Indie Book Awards.

X. J. Kennedy has received the 2009 Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America for his lifetime contribution to poetry. He also served as 2009 Poet in Residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace in Huntington, N.Y.

Anne Landsman’s novel, The Rowing Lesson, was awarded the 2009 M-Net Literary Award for English fiction, sponsored by the South Africa-based Electronic Media Network. The book was shortlisted for South Africa’s Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the Jewish Book Council’s Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and Hadassah Magazine’s Harold U. Ribalow Prize for Jewish fiction.

Tosca Lee received the bronze award for Religious Fiction in the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year contest for her novel Havah.

Buffalo Gal, a memoir by Laura Pedersen, won Best Autobiography from ForeWord magazine and an Honorable Mention for the 2009 Eric Hoffer Book Award.

Megan Rellahan was the winner in the Biography/Autobiography category of the 2008 DIY Book Festival for Edgar Hernandez: An American Hero, coauthored with Jose Martinez. The award was presented in March at the 2009 DIY Convention: Do It Yourself in Film, Music & Books, sponsored by JM Northern Media LLC to encourage independent film, music and books.

Isolina Ricci received the California Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Joseph Drown Award, for 2008, for outstanding services to children.

Albert Russo’s book Gaytude: A Poetic Journey Around the World, coauthored with Adam Donaldson Powell, received the first place award in the Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction category of the 2009 National Indie Excellence Awards. He was a finalist in the Multicultural Fiction category for Shalom Tower Syndrome, and in the Photography category for Body Glorious/Corps à Corps. Body Glorious/Corps à Corps was a winner in the 2008 Books and Authors writing contest. Russo was also recently honored with the opening of the Albert Russo Literary Archives at the Archives & Musée de la Littérature, based at the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels, Belgium.

Blue Diamonds by Vincent Scuro (written as Spencer Dane) was first place in the Published Thriller Category of the Florida Writers Association’s 2008 Royal Palm Awards.

Barbara Sjoholm was among the recipients of the 2009 fellowships awarded by The American-Scandinavian Foundation. The grant will support her creative writing.

Preserving Paradise: Opportunities in Volunteering for Hawaii’s Environment by Kirsten Whatley received a national merit award for Best Travel Guide from the 17th annual North American Travel Journalists’ Association (NATJA).

BUFFALOed, by Fairlee Winfield, was a Grand Prize Winner in the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards contest, receiving $1,000 and first place in the fiction category. The book was a finalist in the Best Cover Design category, and was also a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Awards’ da Vinci Eye contest for superior cover art.

Kay Winters received the Carol Otis Hurst Book Prize for Colonial Voices: Hear Them Speak. The award honors outstanding works written for children and young adults that exemplify the highest standards of research, analysis and authorship in their portrayal of the New England Experience.