Summer/Fall 2013

On July 10, PEN American Center announced the shortlists for the 2013 PEN Literary Awards.

Wiley Cash’s A Land More Kind Than Home was nominated for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, for an author whose debut work “represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.” Victoria Sweet’s God’s Hotel was nominated for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction for an author of a book of general nonfiction “possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues.” David Quammen’s Spillover was nominated for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. W. K. Stratton’s Floyd Patterson was nominated for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. Marilyn Hacker’s translation of Tales of a Severed Head by Rachida Madani was nominated for the PEN Award for Poetry in Trans­lation.

The Nautilus Book Awards represent “Better Books for a Better World” and are presented to authors whose books inspire and make a difference. The 2013 Gold Winners were announced this past spring. Margaret Placentra Johnston won for Faith Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind in the Religion/Spirituality category. Lewis Richmond won for Aging as a Spiritual Practice in the Aging Gracefully category. Julia Cameron won for The Prosperous Heart in the Inner Prosperity/Right Livelihood category. Louise Erdrich won for The Round House in the Multi­cultural/Indigenous category. Dana Micucci tied for Sojourns of the Soul: One Woman’s Journey Around the World and into Her Truth in the Women category.

The 17th annual Books for a Better Life Awards ceremony was held on March 11 at The Times Center in New York City. Will Schwalbe won the Inspiration Memoir Award for The End of Your Life Book Club. Susan Terkel and Lorna Greenberg won the Child/Parenting Award for The Circumcision Decision: An Unbiased Guide for Parents.

The Mensa Society awarded Karl Albrecht its Lifetime Intellectual Benefit Award for contributions by a member to the understanding of human intelligence.

In 2013, Rudolfo Anaya’s classic, Bless Me Ultima, was adapted into a film directed by Carl Franklin. His children’s book, How Hollyhocks Came to New Mexico, illustrated by Nicolas Otero and translated by Nasario Garcia, was a National Federation of Press Women’s Communications Contest winner in the Children’s Fiction category.

The Fellowship of Southern Writers has named Wayne Caldwell the winner of the 2013 James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South. The awards ceremony was held on April 19, during the 17th biennial Celebration of Southern Literature.

Jamie Cat Callan received two international fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts—one to write in Malta, the other to write in Auvillar, France.

Paula J. Caplan’s book When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home: How All of Us Can Help Veterans won the 2012 Independent Publisher’s Silver Medal in the Psychology/Mental Health category. In September 2012, she received a Lifetime Achievement in Advo­cacy Award from the Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma. Her dual-award winning play, Shades, produced by the Latino Theatre Company, had its world premiere in April 2013 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

Pat Carr won the 2013 Porter Fund Prize, an annual award presented to “an Arkansas writer who has accomplished a substantial and impressive body of work that merits enhanced recognition.”

We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust by Ellen Cassedy won the 2013 Grub Street National Nonfiction Prize, the 2013 Towson Prize for Literature, and a Prakhin Literary Foundation Award. Her book was also a finalist in the 2012 ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year Award in the history category.

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett’s short story “Crazy for You” has been selected as one of the best U.S.-based stories in the Akashic noir series and will be included in an anthology USA Noir, compiled and edited by Johnny Temple, to be published in November.

Optimal Care in Childbirth: The Case for a Physiologic Approach by Henci Goer and Amy Romano won the American College of Nurse-Midwives Best Book of the Year Award.

Carolyn Hart received the Amelia Award at Malice Domestic 25 held in Bethesda, MD in recognition for her contributions to the traditional mystery. The award was first presented in 2012 to Elizabeth Peters (Barbara Mertz) and is named after Peters’s most famous character, Amelia Peabody.

Echo Heron’s historical novel, Noon at Tiffany’s, was a quarterfinalist in the General Fiction category of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Three Green Rats, An Eco Tale by Linda Mason Hunter and illustrator Suzanne Summersgill was a finalist for the 2012 ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year Award in the juvenile fiction category.

Christoph Irmscher was a New York Times Book Re­view’s Editor’s Choice selection in February 2013 for Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science.

Jennifer Post: Pure Space, Elegant Minimalism by Anna Kasabian was named one of the 35 Best New Design Books of 2012 by House Beautiful Magazine.

Lucine Kasbarian’s The Greedy Sparrow: An Armenian Tale won the 2013 Nautilus Silver Award in the Chil­dren’s Picture Book category.

In May 2013, Harper’s Magazine won the National Mag­azine Award for fiction, for Stephen King’s story “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation.”

Ric Klass’s novel Excuse Me for Living won first place for Fiction in the Los Angeles Book Festival. The novel is also a finalist for the 2012 ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year in the General Adult Fiction category. His narrative nonfiction book, Man Overboard: Confessions of a Novice Math Teacher in the Bronx, is a Montaigne Medal finalist, presented by the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for the most thought-provoking books.

At the Mystery Writers of America Awards Dinner on May 2, Margaret Maron was named Grand Master. The award is the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality.

The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays, edited by Tara L. Masih, was awarded the silver Benjamin Franklin Award by the Independent Book Pub­lishers Association. The collection also won silver in the 2012 ForeWord Reviews’ Best Book of the Year Awards in the Social Sciences category.

David F. McAllister and his wife Nancy, co-owners of C&M Online Media, Inc., recently sold their imprint Boson Books to Bitingduck Press of Altadena, CA. C&M was the first general, commercial e-book publisher on the Web, established in January 1994.

Eugene Mirabelli’s novel Renato, the Painter tied for first place in the Independent Publisher Awards’ Literary Fiction category.

The Webs of Varok by Cary Neeper won a 2013 Nautilus Silver Award in the Midgrade/Teen Fiction category and was a finalist for the 2012 ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year Award in the Adult Science Fiction category.

Katherine Neville is the first author elected to serve on the board of the Smithsonian Libraries. The Li­braries consist of 20 individual libraries from the Panama Canal to the Cooper-Hewitt in New York City and contain over two million books.

Carla Norton received the Florida Writers Associa­tion’s 2012 Royal Palm Literary Award for The Edge of Normal in the Best Unpublished Mystery category. The novel was published by Minotaur Books in the U.S. this fall.

Brendan O’Carroll’s sitcom Mrs. Brown’s Boys won several awards in 2012 for Best Sitcom, including the BAFTA, the People’s Choice Award (UK), and the National Television Award. The show also won the 2012 IFTA in the Best Entertainment category.

The Body in the Boudoir by Katherine Hall Page was a finalist in the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance’s 2013 Maine Literary Awards.

Philip Raisor won the 2013 Palooka Press Chapbook Prize for Hoosiers: The Poems.

Betsy Robinson won Black Lawrence Press’s 2013 Big Moose Prize for her novel The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg.

Russ Rymer won the Overseas Press Club’s Ed Cun­ning­ham Award for Best Magazine Reporting from Abroad. Along with photographer Lynn Johnson, he was cited for “Vanishing Languages,” which appeared in National Geographic Magazine.

Sherry Shahan’s Alaska-based novel Ice Island is on the Bank Street College of Education’s Best of Books, 2013 list for ages 9–12 in the Adventure category.

Luci Shaw received the 10th annual Denise Levertov Award on May 16 in Seattle, presented to an artist or creative writer whose work exemplifies a sustained engagement with the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Desert Reckoning: A Town Sheriff, a Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in Modern California History by Deanne Stillman won the 2013 Spur Award for Best Contemporary Western Nonfiction and the Los An­geles Press Club Award for Best General Nonfiction. The book was also named a Southwest Book of the Year by the Pima County Library and was a finalist for the 2012 ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year in the True Crime category.

Cheryl Strayed won the 2013 Oregon Book Awards’ Readers Choice Award for her memoir, Wild.

Elizabeth Wein was a Golden Kite Honor Recipient for her young adult novel, Code Name Verity.

Akinyi Weiniger von K’Orinda-Yimbo received The Voice Magazine’s Outstanding African Writer Award for 2013.

Stephanie Grace Whitson’s The Shadow on the Quilt won the Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers Choice Award for Best Inspirational Romance of 2012.

Loving Andrew: A Fifty-Two-Year Story of Down Syndrome by Romy Wyllie won second place in the Non­fiction category of the Indie Reader Discovery Awards announced on June 1 at BookExpo America in New York City.

Bob Zeidman’s horror/comedy novel, Horror Flick, was an Honorable Mention at the 2013 San Francisco Book Festival. His political satire, Good Intentions, won the Indie Excellence Award in the Humor category and was a finalist in the Political Thriller category.