Press Release: Wisconsin Writers Awards Announced
From: Council for Wisconsin Writers www.wiswriters.org
For release: April 2, 2014
Contact: Robin Chapman rschapma@wisc.edu
Winners of 2013 Wisconsin Writers Awards Announced by CWW
The Council for Wisconsin Writers is pleased to announce the 2013 winners and honorable mentions for the Wisconsin Writers’ Awards. CWW’s highest award, the $1,000 Major Achievement Award for work of outstanding merit, goes to John Nichols, who will give the keynote talk at CWW’s Awards Banquet at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 10, at the Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee. The public is invited to celebrate our state’s fine writers and the Council’s 50th anniversary.
Nichols, who lives in Madison, is Washington correspondent for The Nation, associate editor of The Capital Times, and author or co-author of ten books on media, politics and American history. A frequent guest on radio and television programs in the United States and abroad, Nichols is the co-founder of the nation’s media reform network, Free Press.
Winners of the Wisconsin Writers’ Awards for work published in 2013 will each receive $500 and a weeklong writing residency at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point. Honorable mentions will receive $50. Out-of-state judges made the decisions for each award.
Matt Cashion of La Crosse is winner of the Zona Gale Award for Short Fiction with “Awful Pretty,” published in Moon City Review. Margaret Benbow of Madison is recipient of an honorable mention for “Simeon Prophet and Johanna,” published in The Antioch Review.
Amaud Jamaul Johnson of Madison is winner of the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award for Darktown Follies (Tupelo Press). Honorable mention goes to Seth Abramson of Madison for Thievery (University of Akron Press).
Craig Reinbold of Milwaukee is winner of the Kay W. Levin Short Nonfiction Award for his article “The Girl in the Photograph” (Ruminate Magazine). Jill Sisson Quinn of Scandinavia receives honorable mention for her essay “The Myth of Home” (Ecotone Journal).
The Great Cat Nap (Cornerstone Press) by A.M. Bostwick of Tomahawk is winner of the Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award; Rebecca Williams Spindler and Madelyn Spindler, Madison mother-daughter writers, receive honorable mention for Moving Out and Moving On (Little Creek Books).
B. J. Hollars of Eau Claire is winner of the Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award for Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa (Univ. of Alabama Press). Nicholas Hoffman and Jesse Gant, Appleton, receive an honorable mention for Wheel Fever: How Wisconsin Became a Great Bicycling State (Wisconsin Historical Society Press.)
The Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award goes to Jesse Lee Kercheval of Madison for My Life as a Silent Movie (Indiana University Press, 2013). Honorable mention goes to Raymond D. Schrab of Hartford for Dutch Schultz and the Gold of Quilalí (CreateSpace).
The Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award for five individual poems goes to Jeanie Tomasko of Middleton; Rita Mae Reese of Madison receives an honorable mention.
The CWW Essay Award for Young Writers of $250 this year will go to Hannah Kinzer of Eisenhower Middle and High School, New Berlin, plus an additional $250 to her high school library, for her essay “Thirty Thousand Feet in the Air.” Honorable mention goes to Satvir Kalsi of Brookfield Academy for “Out of the Cold, a Friend.” Members of the CWW Board judged.
More information about winners, judges, banquet registration, and the Council can be found at its website, www.wiswriters.org . Banquet tickets must be reserved by Monday, May 5.