2012 FBA Winner wins Pulitzer Prize
Florida State University receives many accolades in 2013 Pulitzer Prizes!
The Florida Book Awards sends many congratulations to Gilbert King, whose book Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.
We were delighted to welcome Gilbert to the Tallahassee to celebrate his book, which also won a 2012 Florida Book Award Gold Medal in the Florida NonFiction category for Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.
First Lady Ann Scott welcomes Gilbert King to the Governor’s Mansion (Photo by Stacy Ferris)
The Pulitzer Committee Described the book as “a richly detailed chronicle of racial injustice in the Florida town of Groveland in 1949, involving four black men falsely accused of rape and drawing a civil rights crusader, and eventual Supreme Court justice, into the legal battle.”
Winning a Pulitzer in fiction is Adam Johnson for his novel The Orphan Master’s Son. Adam is a graduate of Florida State University’s PhD in Fiction. The fiction award drew special attention this year since no award was given last year for this category.
What a prestigious honor for both!
Florida Book Award Winners 2012 Luncheon
On March 20, First Lady Ann Scott hosted a luncheon honoring the 2012 Florida Book Awards winners at the Governor’s Mansion.
First Lady Ann Scott welcomes Lola Haskins, winner of the Bronze Medal in Poetry for her book Grace to Leave.
Winners from across the state of Florida came to Tallahassee for the luncheon. Authors also donated a signed copy of their book to be placed in the Governor’s Mansion library.
In addition to recognizing the Florida Book Awards winners, Mrs. Scott also presented Enid Shomer with this year’s Florida Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing for her many award-winning books. Shomer, whose most recent book The Twelve Rooms of the Nile was described as a “mesmerizing new work of historical fiction” by the Miami Herald, has published both fiction and poetry and is the first woman to receive this honor from the state. Congratulations, Enid Shomer!
First Lady Ann Scott (left) and Secretary of State Ken Detzner (right) with Enid Shomer, receiving her award for Florida Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing.
2012 Florida Book Award Winners Announced
7th ANNUAL FLORIDA BOOK AWARDS ANNOUNCE BEST OF 2012
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— Its seventh annual competitions now complete, Florida Book Awards announces winners for books published in 2012 in eight categories of competition. According to Co-Director Lisa Tendrich Frank, “In its seven years, the program has honored many of the Sunshine State’s best authors. It is already the nation’s most comprehensive statewide program, and the program promises to bring more distinction to our talent-rich state.”
FBA 2012 Winners by Category
Children’s Literature
Gold: Henry Cole, Unspoken (Scholastic)
Silver: Adrian Fogelin, Summer on the Moon (Peachtree Publishers)
Bronze: Dianne Ochiltree, Molly, by Golly (Boyds Mills Press)
Florida NonFiction
Gold: Gilbert King, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (HarperCollins)
Silver: Craig Pittman, The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Beautiful Orchid (University Press of Florida)
Bronze: Larry Eugene Rivers, Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in 19th Century Florida (University of Illinois Press)
General Fiction
Gold: Dennis Lehane, Live by Night (HarperCollins)
Silver: Janis Owens, American Ghost (Scribner)
Bronze: Mary Anna Evans, Plunder (Poisoned Pen Press)
General NonFiction
Gold: Michael Grunwald, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (Simon and Schuster)
Silver: William A. Link, Links: My Family in American History (University Press of Florida)
Bronze: Tracy Crow, Eyes Right: Confessions from a Woman Marine (University of Nebraska Press)
Poetry
Gold: Campbell McGrath, In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (HarperCollins)
Silver: Terri Witek, Exit Island (Orchises Press)
Bronze: Lola Haskins, Grace to Leave (Anhinga Press)
Popular Fiction
Gold: DJ Niko, The Tenth Saint (Medallion Press)
Silver: Michael Lister, Blood Sacrifice (Pulpwood Press)
Bronze: Mary Anna Evans, Plunder (Poisoned Pen Press)
Visual Arts
Gold: Lu Vickers and Bonnie Georgiadis, Weeki Wachee Mermaids (University Press of Florida)
Silver: Robert L. Crawford and William R. Brueckheimer, The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantation (University Press of Florida)
Bronze: Gary Libby, Reflections II: Watercolors of Florida 1835-2000 (Museum of Arts and Science)
Young Adult
Gold: Laura Lascarso, Counting Backwards (Simon and Schuster)
Silver: Carl Hiaasen, Chomp (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Bronze: Alex Flinn, Bewitching (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
The Florida Book Awards –the nation’s most comprehensive state book awards program– was established in 2006 to recognize, honor, and celebrate the best Florida literature published the previous year. It is coordinated by The Florida State University Libraries, and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, State Library and Archives of Florida, Florida Historical Society, Florida Humanities Council, Florida Literary Arts Coalition, Florida Library Association, “Just Read, Florida!,” Florida Family Literacy Initiative, Florida Association for Media in Education, Florida Center for the Literary Arts, the Friends of FSU Libraries, Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, and the Florida Writers Association.
The eight Gold Medal Winners will be recognized on March 20th at the Historical and Cultural Awards Ceremony sponsored by the State of Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs. All award recipients will be recognized at the a banquet held at Mission San Luis March 19 in Tallahassee.
To learn more about Florida Book Awards, visit:http://floridabookawards.lib.fsu.edu/index.php
Other Words Conference
Last weekend, several Florida Book Award winners were at the Other Words Conference held at Flagler College, sponsored by the Florida Literary Arts Coalition. The conference kicked off with a reading by two Gold Medal winners, Stephen Kampa and Enid Shomer.
Stephen read from his book Cracks in the Invisible, which won the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize and a 2011 Florida Book Awards’ Gold Medal in poetry, and also shared some new poems.
After Stephen’s energetic reading, full of irony, hilarious and thought-provoking poems and even an impromptu harmonica performance, Enid Shomer, though an accomplished poet herself, read some prose.
Enid Shomer has published four books of poetry and has edited the poetry series at the University of Arkansas Press since 2002. Enid Shomer’s short story collection, Imaginary Men, won the Iowa Fiction Prize and the LSU/Southern Review Prize. Her book, Tourist Season won the Florida Book Awards Gold Medal and was also chosen for Barnes and Noble’s “Discover Great New Writers” series. Her first novel, The Twelve Rooms of the Nile, was published earlier this year by Simon & Schuster. However, before reading an excerpt from the book, Enid first read an essay on researching and writing the novel, which explores the chance meeting of Florence Nightingale and Gustav Flaubert aboard a ship on the Nile.
Please visit our authors this weekend at the Miami Book Fair!
Lynne Barrett, 2011 Florida Book Award Winner, named Top Scholar
Lynne Barrett, who won a Gold Medal in General Fiction for her short story collection Magpies was named a 2012 Florida International University Top Scholar.
Lynne is in the second row, second from the right, next to FIU President Mark Rosenberg.
On receiving this recognition, Lynne says, “It’s a great honor to be selected from among Florida International University’s outstanding faculty as a Top Scholar, and I’m grateful for the wonderful response that my book Magpies.“
Lynne Barrett is going to be interviewed for a couple interviews leading up to the Miami Book Fair and the Florida Book Awards Panel. Check our blog and facebook for links to these interviews and make sure to congratulate Lynne, as well as the other Florida Book Award authors!
2012 Florida Book Awards Competition is Now Open!
Call for Submissions:
CONTACT: Jaclyn Dwyer, communications director, Florida Book Awards
floridabookawards@gmail.com
or Gloria Colvin, chair, Executive Committee, Florida Book Awards
(850) 645-1680; gcolvin@fsu.edu
2012 FLORIDA BOOK AWARDS COMPETITION NOW OPEN
Deadline for Submission of Entries is Dec. 1, 2012
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Book Awards has kicked off its seventh annual competition with a call for entries in nine categories.
Established in 2006 and now the most comprehensive state book awards program in the nation, the contest recognizes and celebrates the year’s best books penned by full-time residents of the Sunshine State (with the exception of submissions to the Florida Nonfiction and Visual Arts categories, whose authors may live elsewhere.)
The contest categories include General Fiction,Young Adult Literature, Children’s Literature, Florida Nonfiction, Poetry, Popular Fiction, Visual Arts, Spanish Language Book, and a new category forGeneral Nonfiction. Entries, which can be submitted by anyone (e.g. publisher, author or literary agent), must have both an original publication date between Jan. 1, 2012, and Dec. 31, 2012, and an International Standard Book Number (ISBN).
Applicants are encouraged to submit their booksinto competition any time after the competition is launched, and as soon aspossible after books are officially published. All entries must be received no later than 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, 2012 (this is not a postmark deadline). Three-person juries –– including members of co-sponsoring organizations, subject experts from the faculties of Florida colleges and universities, and previous Florida Book Award winners –– will choose up to three finalists in each of nine categories. In each category, the jury may award one Gold, Silver and Bronze medal.
The Florida Book Awards competition is coordinated through the Florida State University Libraries, with the support of book lovers from across the state. New co-directors Andrew Frank and Lisa Tendrich Frank are enthusiastic about their involvement with the Florida Book Awards.
“In its seven years, the program has honored many of the Sunshine State’s best authors, Lisa Tendrich Frank said. “It is already the nation’s most comprehensive statewide program, and with the addition of a new category the program promises to bring more distinction to our talent-rich state.”
Co-sponsors of the competition include humanitiesorganizations from across the state such as the Florida Center for the Book; the State Library and Archives of Florida; the Florida Historical Society; the Florida Humanities Council; the Florida Literary Arts Coalition; the Florida Library Association; the Florida Association for Media in Education; the Florida Center for Literature and Theatre; the Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America; Friends of FSU Libraries; the Florida Writers Association; the Governor’s Family Literacy Initiative; and “Just Read, Florida!”
The 2012 winners will be announced in early February. Gold Medal Award winners will be acknowledged in March 2013 at the Historic and Cultural Awards Ceremony sponsored by the state of Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs. In addition, all Florida Book Awards medalists will be recognized at a banquet hosted by the Florida Library Association at its annual conference.
Winning books and their authors will be showcased in the summer issue of FORUM, the statewide magazine of the Florida Humanities Council, and will be featured at book festivals and association conferences and on The Florida Channel throughout the year. In addition, copies of all award-winning books will be put on permanent publicdisplays, one in the Governor’s Mansion Library and one in Florida State University’s Strozier Library.
For general information and the entry form, requirements, and more detailed instructions for the 2012 Florida Book Awards, visithttp://floridabookawards.lib.fsu.edu.
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2012 FLA Conference
For the past five years, the Florida Book Awards has been a part of the annual Florida Library Association (FLA) Conference, one of the partner organizations sponsoring the awards. On April 19, the 2012 FLA Conference honored recipients of this the 2011 Florida Book Awards by hosting a panel discussion where selected medal winners represented the award series by talking about their books.
Jessica Martinez tells the audience how she came to write Virtuosity, the 2011 Silver Medal winner in for Young Adult Fiction.
Martin A. Dyckman, author of the Bronze Medal winning Florida NonFiction book Reubin O’D. Askew and the Golden Age of Florida Politics, speaks about his work.
This informative panel was followed by a book signing at the President’s Reception and a banquet, where Silver and Bronze Medalists were presented with their awards.
Ryan Van Cleave, Young Adult Fiction Gold Medal Winner for Unlocked signs a book while Caren Umbarger, General Fiction Gold Medal Winner for her novel Coming To, looks on.
Margaret Cardillo signs a copy of her Gold Medal winning children’s book, Just Being Audrey.
Gianna Russo, Florida Book Award winner in the Poetry category, signs a copy of Moonflower, which won a Silver Medal in the 2011 competition.
Thanks to all who attended and especially to our winning authors who were able to join us in Orlando as we honored their literary achievements.
This year’s banquet was particularly special, as the Florida Book Awards said good-bye to Dr. Wiegand, FBA Director and one of the original founders and chief supporters of the Florida Book Awards. We had a special thanks to Dr. Wiegand for his support, vision, and dedication to the FBA and welcomed new Co-Directors Drs. Andrew and Lisa Frank. Thank you Dr. Wiegand for your many years of dedicated service and commitment to the competition, and welcome aboard Andrew and Lisa!
Thanks again to all who sponsored, participated, or assisted with the FLA conference, which is one of the highlights of our awards season. We look forward to many more years in partnership!
