The Georgia Writer’s Association (GWA) will present the 48th Annual Georgia Author of the Year Awards (GAYA) on June 16th, 2012 at a banquet and awards ceremony to honor Georgia-resident authors who were published in 2011. The Georgia Author of the Year Book Awards recognizes Georgia’s outstanding writers and celebrates the state’s rich literary heritage. The GAYA has the distinction of being the oldest literary award in the Southeastern United States.
Over one hundred authors were nominated this year in twelve categories of the book awards including 6 fiction categories: children’s books, young adult, fiction, first novel, short stories, and poetry and 6 non-fiction categories: biography, essay, history, inspirational, memoir, and specialty. The competition is not limited to only mainstream published works. Eligible books can also be independently published or self-published. The list of the nominated books, which exceeded the previous year’s nominations by over 20 books, is available at www.authoroftheyear.org.
The book award celebrates 105 nominated authors. The top author in each category will be named at the ceremony, and some categories will have a runner-up book award or finalist.
Linda Sands, Not Waving, Drowning
The Georgia Writers Association and Kennesaw State University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences sponsor the banquet and awards ceremony. Please join us on June 16th for an evening dedicated to celebrating Georgia’s rich literary heritage. Tickets are required to attend the banquet at 6:00 p.m and can be obtained atwww.georgiawriters.org or www.authoroftheyear.org. Order banquet tickets online.
Publishers, agents, editors and booksellers are encouraged to sponsor tables at the event to assist the Georgia Writers Association in furthering its goals and allow all of the nominees to attend. The awards ceremony following the banquet is free and open to the public at 7:00 p.m.
Ferrol Sams has published 8 books: 3 novels chronicling the life of Porter Osborne, a multi-generational novel, 2 short story anthologies, and 2 non-fiction books. His first novel, Run with the Horsemen became a fan favorite. Two stories from The Widow’s Mite and Other Stories, his first short story anthology, were adapted as one-act plays in 1993 at the A.R.T. Station Theater in Stone Mountain. His third Porter Osborne novel, When All the World Was Young, won the Townsend Prize for Fiction in 1991.
The emcees for the awards ceremony will be former GWA directorDr. Ralph Wilson and former GWA board member Jenny Sadre-Orafai. Dr. Wilson wrote A Black Bridge, a book of poetry, for which he won the GAYA in the 2002 Poetry Category. Jenny Sadre-Orafai wrote the chapbook Weeds Over Flowers and is the Senior Poetry Editor at JMWW.
The Georgia Writer’s Association and Kennesaw State University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences sponsor the banquet and awards ceremony. Please join us on June 16th for an evening dedicated to celebrating Georgia’s rich literary heritage.Tickets are required to attend the banquet at 6 pm and can be obtained atwww.georgiawriters.org or www.authoroftheyear.org. Order banquet tickets online.
Publishers, agents, editors and booksellers are encouraged to sponsor tables at the event to assist the Georgia Writer’s Association in furthering its goals and allow all of the nominees to attend.The awards ceremony following the banquet is free and open to the public at 7pm.