Mary Ellen Gabriel

PRESS RELEASE

2011 Wisconsin Writers Award Announced

CONTACT: Robin Chapman rschapma@wisc.edu

FOR RELEASE: Thursday, March 22, 2012

Eight winners of the Wisconsin Writers Awards for work published in 2011 were announced today by the Council for Wisconsin Writers. Each will receive $500 and a week-long writer’s residency at Shake Rag Alley or Maplewood Lodge in Mineral Point. Awards were decided by out-of-state judges and will be presented at a May 12 Awards Luncheon at the Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee. The public is cordially invited to attend and celebrate Wisconsin’s fine writers.

Winners are Kathleen Ernst of Middleton for her fiction book The Heirloom Murders; Paula vW. Dáil of Spring Green for her nonfiction book Women and Poverty in 21^st Century America; Adam Fell of Madison for his poetry book I Am Not a Pioneer;

Janet Halfmann of South Milwaukee for her children’s book Star of the Sea. A Day in the Life of a Starfish; and Richard Carter of Wauwatosa for outdoor writing in his book Through the Cabin Door.

The winner for short fiction is Lydia Conklin of Madison for “Bear With Me” in Narrative Magazine; for short nonfiction, Mary Ellen Gabriel of Madison for “Ne-rucha-ja: The Forgotten Tale of Frost’s Woods and Charles E. Brown’s Fight To Save It for the Ho-Chunk” in Wisconsin Magazine of History. Sarah Busse of Madison received the Lorine Niedecker Award for five poems.

Honorable mentions were also named in each category and will receive $50 each. They are Douglas W. Jacobson of Elm Grove, for The Katyn Order: a novel; Josephe Marie Flynn, SSND, Milwaukee for her nonfiction book Rescuing Regina: The Battle to Save a Friend from Deportation and Death; Robin Chapman of Madison for her poetry book the eelgrass meadow; Rachel Callaray of Hartford for her children’s book My Wooden Wings; and Marcia Carmichael, Eagle, for outdoor writing in Putting Down Roots: Gardening Insights from Wisconsin’s Early Settlers.  

Paul Schultz of Madison received honorable mention for his short fiction “First Sign” from Burning Bright, Passager; Wendy Vardaman of Madison, for her short nonfiction “The Essay that I Begin Writing While Walking to the Wisconsin Capitol Trying to Discern the Right Question, 2/24/11,” Verse Wisconsin; and Susan Elbe of Madison, for the Niedecker Award for five poems.

Annetta Lorraine Martin, a junior at Milwaukee High School of the Arts, is winner of the Essay Award for Young Writers, which totals $250 in 2011, for her essay “Tiny Fingers.” Brandon Hansen, a junior at Florence High School, receives an honorable mention for his essay “You Have My Heart (At Least for the Most Part).”

Karl Elder of Lakeland College is recipient of the $500 Christopher Latham Sholes Award for outstanding encouragement of Wisconsin writers through his long history of mentoring and showcasing their work, especially in co-ordinating the Great Lake Writers Festival since 1991.

More about the winners, names of the out-of-state judges and information for reserving a place at the May 12 Awards luncheon ($28; reservations required by May 7) is at the Council for Wisconsin Writers website at www.wiswriters.org.

CWW is a non-profit organization founded in 1964 to promote awareness of Wisconsin’s literary heritage.