Thursday, July 02, 2009

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.

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