FAMILIAR NAMES AMONG 2021 OHIOANA AWARDS NOMINEES

 

Mark J. Price, the BJ’s best excavator of historical information about the Akron area, sent me this email:

 

“Hi, John ...

 

“Some familiar names in the Beacon Journal's Book Talk column:

 

“The Ohioana Library has announced the finalists for the 80th anniversary Ohioana Book Awards, to be presented Oct. 14 at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus.

 

“Among the nominees in the fiction category are Connie Schultz (“The Daughters of Erietown”); in About Ohio or An Ohioan, Derf Backderf (“Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio”), David Giffels (“Barnstorming Ohio: To Understand America”) and Eliese Colette (“Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit”); in Juvenile Literature, Thrity Umrigar (“Sugar in Milk”), and in Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature, Shelley Pearsall (“Things Seen from Above”).”

 

Ohioana has been handing out these awards since 1942 and says it’s the 2^nd oldest in America to do it but they didn’t say, as an editor I always advised reporters to do, who was the oldest.

 

Connie, Derf, David and Thrity are familiar to me and most BJ or PD folks.

 

Connie is a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. She was at the PD from 1993 to 2011, when she resigned to avoid a conflict of interest because her husand, Sherrod Brown, is a Democratic Senator from Ohio. She won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her PD column. Connie teaches journalism at Kent State.

 

Derf John “Derf” Backderf is “My Friend Dahmer” cartoonist married to PD and former BJ reporter Sheryl Harris.

 

David won the Ohioana Book Award in 2019 for non-fiction for his book, “Furnishing Eternity,” about building a casket with his father. 

 

Eliese Colette Goldbach is a steelworker at the ArcelorMittal Cleveland Temper Mill. She received an MFA in nonfiction from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program.

 

Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Western Humanities Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Best American Essays 2017.

 

She received the Ploughshares Emerging Writer’s Award and a Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant from the Ohioana Library Association, which is given to a young Ohio writer of promise.

 

Shelley Pearsall is a former teacher and the author of seven acclaimed books for middle grade and teen readers, including two American Library Association Notable Book selections.  She has a B.A. from The College of Wooster and a Master's in Education, M. Ed., from John Carroll University. Shelley lives in  Cuyahoga Valley National Park with her British husband, Mike

 

The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall was among 20 books selected by the State Library of Ohio, Ohioana Library Association and Ohio Center for the Book amalgamation for the 2017 & 2018 Choose to Read Ohio booklist. Her book was in the books for tweens and middle grades category.

 

All of the 2021 nominees:

 

Fiction

Martin, Lee. Yours, Jean, Dzanc Books.

McDaniel, Tiffany. Betty, Alfred A. Knopf.

Nesbit, TaraShea. Beheld, Bloomsbury Publishing.

Schultz, Connie. The Daughters of Erietown, Penguin Random House.

Sickels, Carter. The Prettiest Star, Hub City Press.

Nonfiction

Downs, Maggie. Braver Than You Think, Counterpoint Press.

Jones, Saeed. How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir, Simon & Schuster.

Nezhukumatathil, Aimee. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Milkweed Editions.

Ricca, Brad. Olive the Lionheart: Lost Love, Imperial Spies, and One Woman’s Journey into the Heart of Africa, St. Martin’s Press.

Sutter, Paul M. How to Die in Space: A Journey Through Dangerous Astrophysical Phenomena, Pegasus Books.

About Ohio or an Ohioan

Backderf, Derf. Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, Abrams Books.

Genshaft, Carole, ed. Raggin’ On: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson’s House and Journals, Ohio University Press.

Giffels, David. Barnstorming Ohio to Understand America, Hachette Books.

Goldbach, Eliese Colette. Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit, Flatiron Books.

Heyman, Stephen. The Planter of Modern Life: Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution, W. W. Norton & Company.

Poetry

Black, Ali. If It Heals at All, Jacar Press.

Chan, Marianne. All Heathens, Sarabande Books.

Gay, Ross. Be Holding: A Poem, University of Pittsburgh Press.

Lambert, Paula J. How to See the World (Harmony), Bottom Dog Press.

Majmudar, Amit. What He Did in Solitary: Poems, Alfred A. Knopf.

Juvenile Literature

Hubbard, Rita Lorraine. Illus. by Oge Mora. The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read, Schwartz & Wade.

Metcalf, Lindsay H., Keila V. Dawson, and Jeanette Bradley, eds.  Illus. by Jeannette Bradley.  No Voice Too Small, Charlesbridge Publishing.

Muth, Jon J. Addy’s Cup of Sugar: Based on a Buddhist Story of Healing, Scholastic.

Rex, Adam. On Account of the Gum, Chronicle Books.

Umrigar, Thrity. Illus. by Khoa Le. Sugar in Milk, Running Press Kids.

Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature

Creech, Sharon.  One Time, HarperCollins.

Pearsall, Shelley. Things Seen from Above, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Reynolds, Justin A.  Early Departures, Katherine Tegen Books.

Taylor, Mildred D. All the Days Past, All the Days to Come, Viking Books.

Woodson, Jacqueline. Before the Ever After, Nancy Paulsen Books.