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the WINNERS

Congratulations to the 2011 winners in the National Author, Regional Author and Emerging Author categories!

National Author Winner

Margaret McMullan

A recipient of a 2010 NEA Fellowship in literature and a 2010 Fulbright at the University of Pécs in Pécs, Hungary, Margaret McMullan is the author of six award-winning novels.

Her novels include In My Mother’s House, a Pen/Faulkner nominee; Cashay, a Chicago Public Library 2009 Teen Book Selection; and When I Crossed No-Bob, a 2008 Parents’ Choice Silver Honor, a 2007 School Library Journal Best Book, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, a Booklist 2009 Best Book For Young Adults, and a 2011 Mississippi Center for the Book selection at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Both When I Crossed No-Bob and How I Found the Strong won the Mississippi Arts and Letters Award for Best Fiction (in 2004 and 2008), the Indiana Best Young Adult Book (in 2005 and 2008), and they are both New York Public Library A-List Books for Teens. How I Found the Strong was also named an American Library Association 2005 Notable Social Studies Book, and a Booklist’s Top Ten First Novel for Youth.

Margaret’s latest book, Sources of Light is an American Library Association 2011 Best Book for Young Adults and a Chicago Public Library Teen Selection. Margaret’s work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Ploughshares, Southern Accents, TriQuarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Greensboro Review, Other Voices, Boulevard, The Arkansas Review, The Montréal Review, National Geographic for Kids, The Southern California Anthology, Southern Accents, and The Sun among several other journals and anthologies such as Christmas Stories from the South’s Best Writers.

A 2007 Eudora Welty Visiting Writer at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, Margaret has taught on the summer faculty at the Stony Brook Southampton Writers Conference in Southampton, New York and she has taught at the Eastern Kentucky University, Low-Residency MFA Program. She currently teaches in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana, where she is Professor and Melvin M. Peterson Endowed Chair in Literature and Writing. Visit Margaret’s website at: www.margaretmcmullan.com

Regional Author Winner

Helen Frost

Helen Frost was born in Brookings, South Dakota, the fifth of ten children. She lived in many places prior to moving to Fort Wayne twenty years ago, where her first Indiana home was a Woodbridge Apartment, owned by Eugene and Marilyn Glick.

She graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Elementary Education and a concentration in English. She received her Masters degree in English from Indiana University, and has taught writing at all levels, from pre-school through university. In 2009-2010 she received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry.

Helen has been active in the Indiana community of writers in many ways, including participation in Ropewalk, Young Audiences of Indiana, the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts, the Writers Center of Indiana, the Indiana chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, and as a speaker at the Butler Children’s Literature Conference, and at Indiana Library Federation Conferences. She has received three Individual Artist Fellowships from the Indiana Arts Commission, and, when not an applicant, has served on the literature panel as a juror. Her book, Keesha’s House, was selected by Ivy Tech University in Fort Wayne as their 2011 choice for a Community Read. Diamond Willow and Crossing Stones were each selected as Best Books of Indiana.

Helen has written books for readers of all ages. Her first collection of poetry, Skin of a Fish, Bones of a Bird, won the Women Poets Series Competition in 1993 and was published by Ampersand Press. Her second poetry collection, as if a dry wind, was published by Pecan Grove Press in 2009. She has received the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award and the Mary Carolyn Davies Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.

Her six novels-in-poems, all published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux/ Frances Foster Books, have won numerous awards, including, for Keesha’s House, a Michael L. Printz honor from the American Library Association; for Diamond Willow, The Mitten Award from the Michigan Library Association and the Lee Bennett Hopkins Award for Children’s Poetry, and for all her books, many “Best of the Year” honors and inclusions on state reading lists.

For younger children, Helen’s books include Monarch and Milkweed, published in 2008 by Atheneum, and Step Gently Out, a collaboration with photographer Rick Lieder, to be published by Candlewick in 2012.

Helen is also active in the larger arts community. She worked with the Fort Wayne Dance Collective for over 10 years as part of an inter-disciplinary artistic team in a violence-prevention program incorporating creative movement, percussion, visual arts, and writing. She also worked with the Fort Wayne YWCA and the Fort Wayne Youtheatre to help high school students write about how they have been affected by violence. The students’ writing was the basis of a play and an anthology, both entitled Why Darkness Seems So Light. That work led to the book, When I Whisper, Nobody Listens: Helping Young People Write About Difficult Issues (Heinemann, 2001). Keesha’s House was also adapted to the stage and performed by the Fort Wayne Youtheatre.

Helen is married and has two sons and two grandchildren. She enjoys travel, hiking, beaded gourd-work, kayaking, and raising and releasing monarch butterflies.

Helen’s website is www.helenfrost.net.

Emerging Author Winner
 
Micah Ling

Ling is a graduate of DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. After graduating, she moved to Bloomington where she earned her master’s degree in 20th century American literature and holds a Master of Fine Arts in poetry at Indiana University. Ling has taught in the English departments at Indiana University, Butler University, DePauw University and Franklin College. Ling’s first full-length collection, “Three Islands,” was published in 2009. Her second collection, “Sweetgrass,” was published last year. In addition to poetry, Ling writes freelance arts/entertainment articles for NUVO and for Indianapolis Monthly, and she manages a trio of websites that review books, music and film. She and her husband, Nate, live in Indianapolis.
www.bookpunchreviews.com

Congratulations to all of the past winners of the Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award.  These authors represent some of the best that Indiana literature has to offer, and are truly deserving of recognition. 

Click here for a complete list of past winners and finalists.