Megan Grumbling’s debut book of poetry, “Booker’s Point,” about an old Maine codger and the unofficial mayor of Ell Pond won the Book Award for Poetry at the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance 2017 Maine Literary Awards. Grumbling was among a dozen winners at the annual awards ceremony held Thursday at Space Gallery in downtown Portland.
The awards honor books published during 2016, as well as adult and youth manuscripts in drama, fiction, nonfiction and poetry. This year’s awards saw the first tie in the history of the competition. Caitlin Shetterly and Colin Woodard both won a Book Award for Nonfiction – Shetterly for “Modified,” her book about GMOs, and Woodard, a Portland Press Herald staff writer, for “American Character” about the country’s tussle between individual rights and the common good.
Children’s author and illustrator Ashley Bryan won the Distinguished Achievement Award, which was presented by artist Daniel Minter.
Other winners:
Book Award for Fiction, “Vexation Lullaby” by Justin Tussing; Book Award for Crime Fiction, “Straw Man” by Gerry Boyle; Book Award for Speculative Fiction, “The Time Train” by Eric M. Bosarge; Book Award for Memoir, “Poor Your Soul” by Mira Ptacin; Book Award for Young People’s Literature, “Wrecked” by Maria Padian; Book Award for Children’s, “Baby Bear’s Not Hibernating” by Lynn Plourde, illustrated by Teri Weidner; Book Award for Anthology (Editor), “Take Heart: More Poems from Maine,” by Wesley McNair; John N. Cole Award for Maine-themed Nonfiction, “Caught” by Glen Libby, photographs by Antonia Small; Excellence in Publishing, “Stop Here. This is the Place,” by Susan Conley and Winky Lewis, published by Down East Books; Drama Award (for film, theater and other scripts), Jefferson Navicky.
Short Works Competition, fiction, Brandon Dudley; nonfiction, Margaret Newlin Rice; poetry, Rosa Lane.
Youth Competition, fiction, Maggie Curtis; nonfiction, Mohammed Albehadli; poetry, Alhassan Kareem.
This year, 150 books were entered across the categories. One set of the books that were entered will be given to the Porter Memorial Library in Machias.
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Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at:
Twitter: pphbkeyes
