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Mississippi Authors Awards
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MISSISSIPPI LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
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Mississippi Authors Awards
The Mississippi Authors Awards seek to recognize and encourage Mississippi authors and promote interest in local authors’ books, whether the books are about Mississippi or another subject.
Nominations / Criteria for the Award:
Below you will find criteria for award nominations. Each year nominations are accepted in February by the MLA Awards Committee Chair. The 2024 Committee Chair is Judy Hilkert, jrhilkert@hindscc.edu.
a. Awards may be presented in three categories: Adult Fiction; Adult Non-fiction; or Youth Fiction or Non-fiction; if meritorious works have been published in each category.
b. The honored author(s) must be a Mississippian by birth or have lived in Mississippi for at least five consecutive years.
c. An editor, illustrator, or translator may be considered.
d. The honored author(s) must be living.
e. The award(s) shall be presented for a specific work rather than a body of work.
f. To be eligible for consideration, a book must have been published within three calendar years preceding the year in which the award is made.
g. Each work should be judged on its overall quality, with consideration given to literary merit, style and technique, originality, grammar, and if applicable, accuracy, authenticity, and illustrations.
h. Nominations for works must be made by a current member of MLA to a committee member who will then bring the nomination to the full committee for consideration.
i. If there are no worthy nominations in a category, no award will be given.
j. Previous winners may be considered.
Here are some links to websites about Mississippi’s rich literary heritage:
“The only document of its kind on the Internet, this comprehensive listing of Mississippi’s African-American authors is intended to assist researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and primary and secondary students in their discovery and exploration of the state’s African-American writers. Funded by the Mississippi State University Office of Research, this project is ongoing, and the list is continually updated. It is hoped that established and emerging authors will continually be identified and added to this list by its compilers and by the literary community, whose input is always welcome.” – From the homepage
“Many twentieth-century writers were born in Mississippi or have spent an important part of their lives in the state. Some of the writers are world famous, while others are up-and-coming authors with a first novel that is getting much attention. Others are poets, short story writers, dramatists, essayists, or writers of historical novels or memoirs. Many have had movies made based on their work. All have contributed to the literary and cultural heritage of Mississippi. This web site provides up-to-date information about these writers as researched by the students of Starkville High School in Starkville, Mississippi.” – From the Mississippi Writers webpage
“The Mississippi Writers Page brings together in one place a wide assortment of information about Mississippi’s plethora of literary artists… At the heart of The Mississippi Writers Page are the Writer Listings, individual articles on Mississippi writers which include biographical and critical commentaries on the writers, a comprehensive list of their publications, media adaptations, a selective bibliography of critical resources, and an assortment of resources available on the Internet. .” – From the homepage
Book Medallions
In celebration of Mississippi’s rich literary heritage and in honor of all past, present and future award winners, the Mississippi Library Association has commissioned these Mississippi Authors Award Book Medallions. The Medallions were introduced at the MLA 2001 Annual Conference and can be purchased through MLA with all proceeds going to benefit the Association. To purchase Medallions, please print out this form and send it to the address below. Publishers can use the medallion for $100 per year starting in January and lasting for one fiscal year. Click here for the PDF version.
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PLEASE PRINT
Name ______________________________________________ Address ____________________________________________
City, State, Zip _______________________________________
MISSISSIPPI AUTHOR AWARDS MEDALLIONS:
_____ Fiction (package of 10) – $5
_____ Non-Fiction (package of 10) – $5
_____ Special (package of 10) – $5
_____ Complete set – Includes 2 packages of fiction, 2 packages of non-fiction and 1 package of special – $25
_____ One year usage fee for Publishers – $100
_____ Total price of all medallions ordered.
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Please send check or money order payable to:
Mississippi Library Association
attn: Paula Bass
P.O. Box 13687
Jackson, MS 39236-3687
Winners
Fiction
2024 Katy Simpson Smith - The Weeds
2023 Kelly Mustian - The Girls in the Stilt House
2022 Susan Farris - The Gravediggers Guild
2021 Paige Braddock - Love Letters to Jane's World
2020 Joe Edd Morris - The Prison
2019 Tiffany Quay Tyson - The Past is Never
2017 Greg Iles - Natchez Burning
2016 Kiese Laymon - Long Division
2015 Carey Richard - Poppy Field Diary
2015 Carey Richard - Poppy Field Diary
2014 Michael Farris Smith - Rivers
2013 Julie Cantrell - Into the Free
2012 Ramona Bridges – Sweet By and By
2011 Mary Anna Evans – Floodgates
2010 Deborah Johnson – The Air Between Us
2009 Kathryn Stockett – The Help (2009), published by Putnam.
2008 Robert Dalby – Kissing Babies at the Piggly Wiggly (2007), G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
2007 Laura Evans – The Redemption of Nettie Sykes (2005), Xlibris.
2006 Bev Marshall – Right as Rain
2005 Charlaine Harris – Club Dead
2004 Davis L. Temple Jr. – Two Letters Then Booger Den: Land of Dark Waters
2003 Joe Edd Morris – Land Where My Fathers Died
2002 Bill Fitzhugh – Cross Dressing
2001 Martin Hegwood – Green-eyed Hurricane
2000 Steve Yarbrough – Oxygen Man
1999 Nevada Barr – Firestorm
1998 Howard Bahr – Black Flower
1997 Cathy Adams – Other Autumns
1996 Dorothy Shawhan – Lizzie
1995 Greg Iles – Black Cross
1994 Lewis Nordan – Wolf Whistle
1993 Donna Tartt – The Secret History
1992 John Grisham – The Firm
1991 Ellen Gilchrist – I Cannot Get You Close Enough
1990 Larry Brown – Dirty Work
1989 Ellen Douglas - Can't Quit You Baby
1988 Terry Cline – Quarry
1987 Richard Ford – Sportswriter
Non-Fiction
2024 Virginia McGee Butler - Becoming Exra Jack Keats
2023 Aimee Nezhukumatathil - World of Wonders
2022 Natasha Tretheway - Memorial Drive: A Memoir
2021 Sherye Green and Mildred Janzen - Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin
2020 Kiese Laymon - Heavy: An American Memoir
2019 Tena Clark - Southern Discomfort: A Memoir
2018 John F. Marszalek, David S. Nolen, and Loui P. Gallo - The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
2017 Richard Grant - Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta
2016 Suzanne Marrs – Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald
2015 John Hailman – From Midnight to Guntown
2014 Robert Khayat – The Education of a Lifetime
2013 Carolyn Brown – A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty Special
2012 Stokes McMillan – One Night of Madness
2011 Ellis Anderson – Under Surge Under Siege
2010 Chris Myers Asch – The Senator and the Sharecropper: the Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer
2009 Gerard Helferich – High Cotton: Four Seasons in the Mississippi Delta (2007), published by Counterpoint.
2008 Walt Grayson – Looking around Mississippi (2007), Donning Company Publishers.
2007 Andrew P. Mullins, Jr. – The Measure of Our Days: Writings by William F. Winter (2006), University Press of Mississippi.
2006 Suzanne Marrs – Eudora Welty: A Biography
2005 Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays – Being dead is no excuse
2004 Minor Ferris Buchanan – Holt Collier: His Life, His Roosevelt Hunts, and the Origin of the Teddy Bear
2003 Ruth Williams – Younger Than That Now
2002 R. Scott Brunner – Due South: Dispatches from Down Home
2001 Norman Winter – Mississippi Gardener’s Guide
2000 Edward Cohen – Peddler’s Grandson
1999 Elizabeth Spencer – Landscapes of the Heart
1998 Clarice T. Campbell – Civil Rights Chronicle: Letters from the South
1997 Mary Carol Miller – Lost Mansions of Mississippi
1996 Majorue Spruill – New Women of the South
1995 Anne A. Lipscomb and Kathleen S. Hutchison – Tracing your Mississippi Ancestor
1994 John Marzalek – Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order
1993 Clifton Taulbert – Last Train North
1992 Charles Wilson and William Ferris – Encyclopedia of Southern Culture
1991 Melany Neilson – Even Mississippi
1990 Willie Morris – Homecoming
1989 Margaret Walker – Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius
1988 Felder Rushing – Gardening Southern Style
1987 Eudora Welty – One Writer’s Beginnings
Special
2024 Sarah C. Campbell - Infinity: Figuring Out Forever (Children's Award); Linda Williams Jackson - The Lucky Ones (Youth Award)
2023 J. Dillard - J. D. and the Great Barber Battle
2022 David W. Walker - The Witch's Tower
2021 Corabel Shofner - Almost Paradise
2020 Jo Watson Hackl - Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe
2019 Linda Williams Jackson - Midnight Without a Moon
2018 Angie Thomas - The Hate U Give
2017 Matthew Clark Smith - Small Wonders: Jean-Henri Fabre and His World of Insects
2016 Hester Bass – Seeds of Freedom: The Peaceful Integration of Huntsville, Alabama
2015 Carolyn J. Brown – Song of My Life
2014
2013 Augusta Scattergood – Glory Be
2012 Margaret McMullan – Sources of Light
2011 Hester Bass for Children’s Literature – The Secret World of Walter Anderson
2010 Sarah Campbell for Children’s Literature – Wolfsnail: a Backyard Predator
2008 Sherry Pace – Historic Churches of Mississippi (2007), University Press of Mississippi.
2006 Margaret McMullan – How I Found the Strong
2005 Harris Barnes – Cotton: a 50 year pictorial history: the photographs of Harris Barnes
2004 Freddi Williams Evans for Children’s Literature – A Bus of Our Own
2003 Wyatt Waters for Art – Southern Palate
2001 Maude Schuyler Clay for Photography – Delta Land
2000 Laurie Parker for Juvenile Literature – Everywhere in Mississippi and Mississippi Alphabet
1999 Peggy Prenshaw for Editorship
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