Blog Reviews Vietnam Book

Author Cym Lowell has written a review of the IHS Press book "To Bear Any Burden": A Hoosier Green Beret's Letters from Vietnam on his blog.

From 1968 to 1969, Daniel H. FitzGibbon, a Columbus, Indiana, native, graduate of West Point, and today an Indianapolis attorney, served as a captain with the Fifth Special Forces in South Vietnam. During his time in country, FitzGibbon wrote letters to his parents back home in Columbus about his experiences running two Special Forces A team camps, one located in the north central portion of South Vietnam, and the other near the country's border with Cambodia.

FitzGibbon's letters were saved by his mother and were given back to the veteran, who typed and copied them for his children so they would know "what Daddy did in the war."

IHS Press Authors Nominated for Honor

Two Indiana Historical Society Press authors, James H. Madison and Susan Neville, have been nominated as finalists in the inaugural Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award.

This new award seeks to recognize the contributions of Indiana authors to the literary landscape in Indiana and across the nation by the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Foundation, and is funded by the generosity of The Glick Fund, a fund of Central Indiana Community Foundation.

Nominations were submitted from across the state in early spring. Any published writer who was born in Indiana or has lived in Indiana for at least five years was eligible. A seven-member, statewide Award Panel selected the national winner and finalists in three categories from the pool of publicly nominated authors:

• National Author - $10,000 prize: a writer with Indiana ties, but whose work is known and read throughout the country. National authors were evaluated on their entire body of work. Winner: James Alexander Thom; Finalists: Scott Russell Sanders and Margaret McMullan

• Regional Author - $7,500 prize: A writer who is well-known and respected throughout the state of Indiana. Regional authors were evaluated on their entire body of work.Finalists: Jared Carter, Madison, and Neville

• Emerging Author - $5,000 prize: A writer with only one published book. Emerging authors were evaluated on their single published work. Finalists: Kathleen Hughes, Christine Montross, and Greg Schwipps.

Award finalists in all three categories will be honored on September 26, 2009 at the Central Library in downtown Indianapolis. The day’s events will include free public programming such as author lectures, “how to get published” workshops for aspiring writers, and more. An award dinner/fund raiser benefiting the Library Foundation will follow that evening where the winner of the Regional Author and Emerging Author categories will each be named. Thom will serve as the dinner’s keynote speaker. Ticket information for the award dinner is available by contacting the Library Foundation at (317) 275-4700 or by visiting www.indianaauthorsaward.org.

Madison is the author of the IHS Press books Eli Lilly: A Life, 1885-1977, Indiana through Tradition and Change: A history of the Hoosier State and its People, 1920-1945, and The Indiana Way: A State History (co-published with Indiana University Press). Neville wrote the IHS Press publication Twilight in Arcadia: Tobacco Farming in Indiana. Madison, Neville, and Carter have also written for the IHS Press's popular history magazine Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History.

Bass Photo Book Receives Honor

The Indiana Historical Society Press book Indianapolis: The Bass Photo Company Collection, written by Susan Sutton, has been named as one of three finalists in the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Awards competition in the Regional category. The awards are sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association.

The 2009 Benjamin Franklin Award winner will be chosen from one of the three finalists and will receive the Benjamin Franklin Award during a ceremony on Thursday evening, May 28, 2009 at the Roosevelt Hotel, New York located at 45th and Madison in New York City.

Named in honor of America's most cherished publisher/printer, the Benjamin Franklin Awards recognizes excellence in independent publishing. Publications, grouped by genre are judged on editorial and design merit by top practitioners in each field.

Indianapolis: The Bass Photo Company Collection contains 183 photos selected from the vast Bass Photo Company Collection. The assorted images depict Indianapolis in good times and bad and provide a visual link to the city's past. Many of the images are so vivid that one can almost hear the clang of a trolley, the click of horse hooves, the roar of engines, and the din in the streets filled with bustling pedestrians. Included in the volume are nostalgic images of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, leisure activities, individual portraits, street scenes, Monument Circle, a parade of returning World War I soldiers, the Indianapolis Home Show, transportation, and architecture

IHS Press Titles Nominated for Awards

Three books published by the Indiana Historical Society Press are finalists in ForeWord Magazine's 2008 Book of the Year Awards. More than 1,400 books were entered in 61 categories. These were narrowed to 668 finalists from 376 publishers. These books represent some of the best work coming from today's independent press community.

The IHS Press books in the competition and their categories are:

* Red Skelton: The Mask behind the Mask by Wes D. Gehring, Biography

* Alone: The Journey of the Boy Sims by Alan K. Garinger, Juvenile nonfiction

* Going over all the Hurdles: A Life of Oatess Archey by John A. Beineke, young adult nonfiction

The winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers, selected from the magazine's readership. Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners, as well as Editor's Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction will be announced at a special program at BookExpo America at the Javits Center in New York City on May 29. The winners of the two Editor's Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each. The ceremony is open to all BEA attendees.

Small Press Month Workshop

March is Small Press Month and you are invited to learn more about publishing opportunities in Indiana by participating in a "How to Get Published" workshop from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, March 7, 2009, at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, 450 W. Ohio Street, Indianapolis.

Three Hoosier small presses--the Indiana Historical Society Press, Indiana University Press, and Hawthorne Publishing--will be involved in the program. Ray Boomhower and Teresa Baer from the IHS Press, Nancy Baxter from Hawthorne Publishing, and Janet Rabinowitch from IU Press will give their insight on small press trends. You will learn about what these publishers focus on and what they and other small presses have to offer writers.

Participants will also explore how the process works and what they need to consider when approaching a press with a book idea or manuscript. Participants will receive complimentary magazine and book copies and will be entered to win additional prizes.

The cost for attending the workshop is $15; $12 for IHS members. Reservations are required as seating is limited. To make a reservation, call the Society at (317) 232-1882.

Small Press Month is a nationwide celebration highlighting the valuable work produced by independent publishers. Held annually in March, Small Press Month raises awareness about the need for broader venues of literary expression. From March 1 to 31, independent, literary events will take place from coast-to-coast, showcasing some of the most diverse, exciting, and significant voices being published today.

As best-selling author Sherman Alexie—the face of this year's Small Press Month Poster—states: "The small presses represent what is most brave, crazy and beautiful about our country and our literature. So let us all sing honor songs for the independent publishers."

Small Press Month, now in its thirteenth year, is a grass-roots effort co-sponsored by: the New York Center for Independent Publishing, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, and the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Article on Holiday Author Fair

John A. Beineke, author of the IHS Press youth biography Going over all the Hurdles: A Life of Oatess Archey, was one of the approximately 90 Hoosier writers who participated in the sixth annual Indiana Historical Society Holiday Author Fair, which was held on Saturday, December 6, at the Indiana History Center in Indianapolis.

Following his time at the Author Fair, Beineke wrote an article on the event that was published in the Indianapolis Star on Friday, December 12. Here is his article:

There were other things to do last Saturday afternoon. Basketball games to watch, holiday shopping at the malls, or even just staying home out of the cold. And there was also that so-called "light" snow that made roads tricky, even hazardous.

But hundreds of readers found dozens of writers at the Indiana Historical Society's sixth annual Holiday Author Fair. The Indiana History Center on West Ohio Street hosted 90 Indiana authors who sat behind tables with their works piled in neat stacks in front of them. Children and adults roamed from table to table to peruse the books and chat with the authors.

Topics and themes of the books included art, fiction, mystery, humor, sports and travel. Biography was a popular subject. Ball State University professor of film Wes Gehring had his new biography of Red Skelton available in a bright yellow dust jacket, and the fourth edition of Nelson Price's "Indiana Legends," with biographical sketches from Lombard to Letterman and Riley to Robertson, demonstrated that there is no shortage of famous Hoosiers.

Talented Indiana Historical Society Press editor Ray Boomhower was there with his new book on the 1968 Indiana primary campaign of Robert Kennedy. Sitting behind another table, dressed in a 60-year-old Army captain's uniform, was a youthful Rick Barry, author of "Gunner's Run" a World War II thriller.

Sitting next to me was one of the more popular authors that afternoon, 89-year-old Francis DeBra Brown. "An Army in Skirts" is her splendid memoir of life in the Women's Army Corps in World War II. This book makes a good companion to James Madison's "Slinging Doughnuts for the Boys," the story of Mishawaka Red Cross volunteer Elizabeth Richardson's service in wartime England and France.

We are told that book companies are having a hard time of it and that kids and adults just don't read that much anymore. Video games, DVDs, the Internet, and HD television keep most people occupied. That is no doubt happening.

But it also needs to be reported that for a good number of Hoosiers the reading of books is still alive and well. Many individuals, young and old, left the Indiana History Center on Saturday afternoon with a bag full of books by Hoosier authors.

Dunn Award Winner Announced

Ann Allen is the winner of the Indiana Historical Society’s annual Jacob Piatt Dunn Jr. Award for the best article to appear in Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History for 2008. Allen, pictured at right receiving her award from James H. Madison, IHS trustee, won for her article, “Reece Oliver: Indiana’s Shadow Hero,” which appeared in the summer 2008 issue of Traces.

Named for the noted Indiana historian and author, the $500 award honors the article that in the opinion of the Traces editorial board and staff best serves the magazine’s mission. This mission involves presenting thoughtful, research-based articles on Indiana history in an attractive format to a broad audience of readers.

Former editor of the Akron/Mentone News, Allen has written about Akron, Indiana, and its residents for nearly fifty years, including her time as a correspondent for the Rochester Sentinel. She has written four books set in Akron. Allen is a past president of the Woman’s Press Club of Indiana.

Dunn, who helped revitalize the Society in the 1880s, produced such standard works as the two-volume Greater Indianapolis (1910) and his five-volume Indiana and Indianans (1919). In his remarkable career, Dunn also worked on a variety of Indianapolis newspapers, campaigned to establish free public libraries, endeavored to preserve the language of the Miami Indians, and prospected for minerals in Haiti.