Winter 2015

Lily King’s Euphoria received the 2014 Kirkus Prize in the Fiction category. Bill Roorbach’s The Remedy for Love was nominated in that same category. Jack Gantos’s The Key That Swallowed Joey Pigza was nominated in the Young Readers category. The winners were announced on October 23, 2014.

Ursula K. Le Guin received the National Book Foundation’s 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in recognition of her transformative impact on American literature.Nominees for the National Book Awards were announced in September.Among them were Nigel Hamilton’s The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941 – 1942 in the Nonfiction category; Laurie Halse Anderson’s The Impossible Knife of Memory and Carl Hiaasen’s Skink—No Surrender in the Young People’s Literature category; Rabih Alameddine’s An Unnecessary Woman and Jane Smiley’s Some Luck in Fiction . Alameddine’s work made the shortlist for Fiction.

Where’s Mommy, written by Beverly Donofrio and illustrated by Barbara McClintock, and Sophie Blackall’s The Baby Tree were named New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 2014.

Ellery Akers’s Practicing the Truth won the 2014 Autumn House Poetry Prize for a collection and will be published by Autumn House Press in January 2015.

Melissa Balmain received the 2013 Able Muse Book Award for her collection of comic verse, Walking In on People.

Hester Bass’s Seeds of Freedom: The Peaceful Integration of Huntsville, Alabama has been chosen as a Junior Library Guild selection for February 2015.

Alison Bechdel was named a 2014 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow. Fellows receive $625,000 over five years from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Kelly Bennett’s Vampire Baby, illustrated by Paul Meisel, was named one of Bank Street College’s Best Children’s Books of the Year. Her One Day I Went Rambling, illustrated by Terri Murphy, won the Writer’s League of Texas 2013 Best Picture Book Award.

John Bensko has been selected as winner of the second annual Anita Claire Scharf Award by the editors of Tampa Review.

The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis was shortlisted for the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown was a finalist in the Nonfiction category of the 2014 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

Dan Burns won the Best Screenplay Award at the 7th annual 2014 Naperville Independent Film Festival for his new crime drama, A Fine Line.

Sarah Cortez’s Cold Blue Steel was a finalist for the Writer’s League of Texas Poetry Award.

Paul DeBlassie III’s The Unholy received the International Book Award in the Fiction: New Age category and the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award in the Metaphysical Thriller category.

The Vermont Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped has selected Judith Edwards’s Invasion on the Mountain as its first locally produced audio book for the blind. The Library intends to locally produce the second and third installments of the trilogy as well: Trouble on the Mountain and At the Top of the Mountain.

Louise Erdrich won the PEN/Saul Bellow prize, a lifetime achievement honor for American writers. The award is given out biannually and comes with a cash prize of $25,000.

Alessandra Gelmi won Bronze Medals in the 2014 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards for Ring of Fire in the General Poetry category, and for Who’s Afraid of Red in the Cultural Fiction category.

Beatrice Gormley‘s Friends of Liberty received the Carol Otis Hurst Children’s Book Prize awarded by the Westfield Athenaeum.

The Otter, the Spotted Frog and the Great Flood by Gerald Hausman was a finalist for Midwest Book Awards in the categories of Children’s Picture Books, Illustration: Graphic, and Total Book Design. The title was also a USA Today Best Book Award finalist and received the bronze medal for the Foreword IndieFab Book of the Year in the Picture Books, Early Reader category.

Manu Herbstein received a 2014 Burt Award for African Literature in Ghana for his young adult historical novel, The Boy Who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye. The award is administered annually by the Canadian Organization for Development Through Education and the Ghana Book Trust. Winning titles are distributed to school libraries throughout Ghana.

Roy Huff received the 2014 Readers’ Favorite Young Adult Fantasy Silver Medal for Everville: The Rise of Mallory and Everville: The City of Worms was a 2014 Rone Awards Sci-fi/Fantasy Cover of the Year honorable mention.

Michael Hurley received the Chanticleer Reviews’s Grand Prize for Overall Best Book for The Prodigal.

Dorothea Jensen’s The Riddle of Penncroft Farm won a 1st Prize in the Historical Fiction category of the 2014 Purple Dragonfly Book Award.

Eric Laster’s children’s book, Welfy Q. Deederhoth: Meat Purveyor, World Savior has been named a recipient of the Mom’s Choice Award, bestowed on the best in family-friendly products.

Marylee MacDonald received the Jeanne M. Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award for The Rug Bazaar.

A Marker to Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik was a finalist in the Fiction category of the 2014 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

J. David Markham has been made a Knight of the French Academic Palms (Chevalier de l’ordre des palmes académiques) by the French government for his work in promoting French culture and history in the United States and throughout the world. He has written numerous books on Napoleonic history and is President of the International Napoleonic Society, an international group of Napoleonic historians.

Gina Ogden received the 2014 AASECT Professional Book Award for Expanding the Practice of Sex Therapy. The award is presented to a book that makes “a significant contribution to AASECT’s vision of sexual health and to the clinical and educational standards of the field.”

Peggy Payne’s novel Cobalt Blue received a 2014 Independent Publisher Award for Visionary Fiction.

Harry Mark Petrakis received the Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame during a ceremony held at the Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center October 4, 2014.

Penney Peirce’s Leap of Perception received two Visionary Awards from the Coalition of Visionary Resources for Book of the Year and Best Alternative Science Book.

Karen Cecil Smith’s Pillow of Thorns received the 2013 Clark Cox Historical Fiction Award presented by the North Carolina Society of Historians.

Johnny Evers: A Baseball Life by Dennis Snelling was a finalist for the Casey Award as Best Baseball Book for 2014.

I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool for Love Hikes the Pacific Crest Trail by Gail D. Storey won the National Outdoor Book Award, the Foreword IndieFab Book of the Year Award, the Colorado Book Award, the Nautilus Silver Award, and the Barbara Savage Award.

J. E. Thompson received the 2014 Southern Independent Booksellers Best Children’s Book for The Girl from Felony Bay.

Caryn Yacowitz’s newest picture book, I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Dreidel, has been named a Junior Library Guild Selection and received a Starred Review in Publisher’s Weekly.

Morowa Yejidé is an NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literary Debut Work for Time of the Locust. The winners will be announced in February 2015.