Book News

Southern Novella links to Country Music

Best-selling author Michael Morris (Slow Way Home, A Place Called Wiregrass) has penned a novella incorporating the lyrics of the smash hit song - Live Like You Were Dying: A Story About Living. Bearing a foreword by Tim McGraw, Morris delivers a powerful tale of realization. The book's release was timed to be on the store shelves one to two weeks before the CMA Awards Show on November 9, 2004.

The novella was included in VIP bags to the stars at the CMA Awards Show and Morris will join veteran songwriters Craig Wiseman and Tim Nichols for Behind the Song events in promotion of the book. The first event will be held at the Isle of Capri in Shreveport on November 12th; the second will be at the famous Bluebird Cafe in Nashville on November 19th.

Live Like You Were Dying is the 2004 winner of the CMA Song of the Year and the CMA Single of the Year.

Regional Literary Prizes

South Carolina author William Price Fox is the 2004 recipient of the Governor’s Award in the Humanities. His humorous books include: Southern Fried, Dixiana Moon, Moonshine Light, Moonshine Bright. In January 2005, his next book will be released. Satchel Paige’s America chronicles the 10 days Fox spent with the pitcher, who Joe DiMaggio called “the best and fastest pitcher I’ve ever faced.”

The North Carolina Writers' Network held the 2004 induction ceremony into the NC Literary Hall of Fame in October. The 2004 inductees were: fiction writer Doris Betts; journalist Tom Wicker; and poet James McGirt (deceased).

Nancy S. Seasholes has received the 2004 Historic Preservation Book Prize from the University of Mary Washington's Center for Historic Preservation for her book Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston.

Andy Straka of Charlottesville has won a 2004 Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America for his novel Cold Quarry.

The Library of Virginia has given its 7th Annual Literary Awards to:

-Edward Jones (fiction) for The Known World. The book also won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 2004 People's Choice Award for Fiction.

-Suzanne Lebsock (nonfiction) for A Murder in Virginia. The book also won the 2004 Parkman Prize awarded by the Society of American Historians.

-Debra Nystsrom (poetry) for Torn Sky.

-George Garrett, the Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

The People's Choice Awards, sponsored by the Library and the James River Writers Festival, went to Jones and to Elizabeth Varon, author of Southern Lady, Yankee Spy.

Mississippi Authors' Award

The Mississippi Library Association presented its top literary honors to three of the state's native writers as part of the group's three-day convention. Those honored included children's author Freddi Williams Evans, novelist Davis L. Temple Jr., and nonfiction author Minor Ferris Buchanan.

Freddi Williams Evans' A Bus of Our Own is based on real events and celebrates the spirit of the African Americans who lived in rural Mississippi in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Evans' newest book is The Story of Congo Square.

Davis L. Temple, Jr.'s first book Two Letters Then Booger Den will be followed by three other books in various stages of completion: Preacherman, a prequel to Two Letters; Moodus Noises, a story of the return of the old Pequot Indians exterminated by the white man in 1637; and Pandora's New Box, a science fiction tale of biotechnology gone bad.

When his daughter asked where did the Teddy Bear originate, Minor Ferris Buchanan was inspired to write Holt Collier, His Life, His Roosevelt Hunts, and The Origin of the Teddy Bear. Buchanan is on the speakers circuit with his presentation on the Teddy Bear.

Novello Literary Award

Novello Festival Press has named Doris Iarovici of Durham, NC, the 2005 winner of the Novello Literary Award. Iarolvici won for her collection of short fiction, titled American Dreaming and Other Stories. As a child, Iarovici came to America from her native Romania, and followed her own dream, earning a medical degree from Yale University. Currently, she is a psychiatrist in practice at Duke University. 

Iarovici received $1000 plus publication and national distribution of her book. It will be the first collection of short works by a single author to be published by NFP, and is scheduled for release in Fall 2005. 

Finalists included: Sandra Cimadori of Lincolnton, NC; Julia Nunnally Duncan of Marion, NC; Mark Ethridge of Charlotte,NC; Dot Jackson of Pickens, SC; and Kay McSpadden of Rock Hill, SC. 

The 2004 winner, Steve Cushman, has recently had his novel Portisville published by Novello Festival Press.

2004 Royal Palm Awards

The Florida Writers Association have presented the 2004 Royal Palm Awards for original works by FWA members and works published between 2003-2004 (Some of the works listed as unpublished, have since been published).

The Osceola Community Club by D. H. Eaton (Cumberland House) took Book of the Year honors. The novel is a charming journey back in time through the pages of a 1958 cookbook. While on a trip back to her Florida childhood hometown, a middle-age woman discovers the cookbook, which was created when she was a girl of twelve. The recipes trigger memories of her youth and the people of this community.

Other winners include: