Winter/Spring 2014

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) were presented at a ceremony at the New School on March 13. Sheri Fink’s Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital won the General Nonfiction category. Nominees, who were announced in January, included Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped in the Autobiography category. Katherine A. Powers was the recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and both Roxana Robinson and Ruth Franklin were for that honor.

The Facebook Diet: 50 Funny Signs of Facebook Addiction and Ways to Unplug with a Digital Detox by Gemini Adams received the 2013 Mom’s Choice Gold Award for Humor Books.

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection included three stories from The Other Half of the Sky, a 2013 anthology of original short stories edited by scientist, author and editor Athena Andreadis.

Angie Bailey received four Certificates of Excellence in the 2013 Cat Writers’ Association Annual Communication Contest. She also won the BlogPaws Nose-to-Nose Blogging and Social Media Award for Best Humor Blog.

Kelly Bennett received the Writer’s League of Texas Book Award for her picture book, One Day I Went Rambling, illustrated by Terri Murphy.

Judy Blume received the National Council of Teachers of English/SLATE National Intellectual Freedom Award and the ALAN Award (Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE) at the NCTE Annual Convention, held last November in Boston, MA.

Kathleen Long Bostrom has been named the recipient of the 2014 David Steele Distinguished Writer award, the top honor given by the Presbyterian Writers Guild. She will receive her award in June at the Presbyterian General Assembly, in Detroit, Michigan.

The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered by Daniel B. Botkin was a 2013 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in the Science: General category.

America’s Best BBQ – Homestyle: What the Champions Cook in Their Own Backyards by Ardie A. Davis with Chef Paul Kirk was awarded Best BBQ Book of the Year 2013 by the National Barbecue News.

Joan Druett and Rick Spilman have founded Old Salt Press, an association of writers working together to produce and publish quality maritime fiction and nonfiction..

Paula Fox received the Paris Review’s 2013 Hadada Award, presented each year to “a distinguished member of the writing community who has made a strong and unique contribution to literature.”

Mary Glickman’s One More River was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist in Fiction.

Bombs Over Bikini: The World’s First Nuclear Disaster by Connie Goldsmith was named a Junior Library Guild selection for 2014.

Kay Goldstein was awarded the 2013 Silver Nautilus Award in Middle Grade category for Star Child. The Nautilus Awards are given for “Better Books for a Better World.”

Jacquelin Gorman received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her collection The Viewing Room, which was published this past fall by the University of Georgia Press.

Joan Bransfield Graham received the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) 2014 Book Launch Award for The Poem That Will Not End: Fun with Poetic Forms and Voices.

Jane Harrington was awarded a fellowship by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She will be one of approximately 25 fellows focusing on their own creative projects at this working retreat for visual artists, writers and composers.

Carolyn Hart has been chosen as one of two Grand Masters for 2014 by Mystery Writers of America (MWA). (The other is Robert Crais.) The award will be presented at the Edgar Awards banquet in New York City on May 1.

Dorothea Jensen’s Tizzy, the Christmas Shelf Elf and Blizzy, the Worrywart Elf both received Mom’s Choice Awards, which honor the best in family-friendly media.

Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food by Jon Krampner was named a 2013 Best Book of the Year in the category of Nonfiction by the Los Angeles Public Library.

Letters from Berlin: A Story of War, Survival, and the Redeeming Power of Love and Friendship by Kerstin Lieff and Margarete Dos won the Colorado Book Award for Best Biography 2013.

Lois Lowry received the Best of Brooklyn Award this past September at the annual Brooklyn Book Festival. The award ceremony was held at St. Francis College.

Harold C. Lyon, Jr. received the 2013 Silver Medal Winner eLit Award and the “Best Book of the Year Award” from the New England Outdoor Writers Association for Angling in the Smile of the Great Spirit.

Pamela Mayer received the 2013 Sugarman Family Children’s Book Award for Don’t Sneeze at the Wedding.

Bonnie J. Morris’s The Schoolgirl’s Atlas won the Finishing Line Press’s New Women’s Voices Award. Her book Women’s History for Beginners was the runner-up for first prize in the New England Book Festival held in Boston this past January. She was also selected for C-Span Book TV’s “In Depth Author Profile,” which aired in February.

Essays for My Father: A Legacy of Passion, Politics, and Patriotism in Small-Town America by Richard Muti was a 2013 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in the Anthologies: Nonfiction category.

Maryanne O’Hara received Fiction Honors from the Massachusetts Center for the Book for her debut novel, Cascade.

Alexis O’Neill was the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators 2013 Member of the Year.

Liberty’s Christmas by Randall Platt won the Willa Cather Literary Award and the Will Rogers Medallion Literary Award. It was also a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Mountain and Plains Independent Booksellers Association’s Read the West Award, and received an honorable mention for the Washington State Book Award.

Henry’s Awful Mistake by Robert Quackenbush won the 2013 Gradiva Award in the category of Children’s Books.

Fred Reed’s Abraham Lincoln: Beyond the American Icon was honored with the Numismatic Literary Guild’s Best Book, Tokens and Medals Award for 2013, and a special Token & Medal Society Presidential Award for contributions to the hobby.

Albert Russo’s Vengeance par procuration (Revenge by proxy) won the 2013 UNICEF Poetic Prose Award for the protection of childhood worldwide.

Paul Schullery received an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from Ohio University, in recognition of his work as a writer and conservationist.

An excerpt from Fatima Shaik’s Mayor of New Orleans was chosen for N.O. Lit: 200 Years of Louisiana Literature, edited by Nancy Dixon.

Sharon Short was one of the featured authors at the 2013 Ohioana Book Festival.

Joy Smith’s Oh, No, They’re Engaged!: A Sanity Guide for the Mother of the Bride or Groom was a Finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award.

Mirabai Starr’s God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam won the 2013 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award in the Religious Book category.

James Sterba’s Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds was a Los Angeles Times Book Prizes finalist and the winner of the 2013 Green Prize for Sustainable Literature, awarded by the Santa Monica Public Library and the City of Santa Monica.

Margaret Wrinkle’s Wash was shortlisted for the 2013 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, awarded by the Center for Fiction.