MINNESOTA BOOK AWARDS GALA

Saturday, April 25, the twenty-first annual Minnesota Book Awards.
Held at the Crowne Royal Hotel in Saint Paul

More than 700 people attended the event, organized and managed impeccably by the Friends of the Saint Paul Library under the steady hand of the glamorous event director, Alayne Hopkins.

Emcee of the even was Tom Crann, award-winning host of Minnesota Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

Winner of the award for Young People’s Literature was Brian Malloy, for “Twelve Long Months,” published by Scholastic Press.
Winner of the award for Minnesota literature was Barbara W. Sommer, for her work entitled “Hard Work and a Good Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota,” published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

Winner of the 2008 award for Children’s Literature, Susan Marie Swanson. Her book, published by Houghton Mifflin, is titled “The House in the Night.”

Each year an award named for one of Minnesota’s premier bookbuyers and supporters of reading, the Kay Sexton Award, is presented to a significant worker in the book business. This year the award went to Patrick Coleman, archivist and books curator for the Minnesota Historical Society, a long-time tireless promoter of the book industry and reading.

Paulette Meyers-Rich was honored as the Book Artist of the Year.

Catherine Friend won the award for general non-fiction for her work, “The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald’s Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat.” It is published by Da Capo Press/Perseus Books Group.

Heid Erdrich won the Poetry Award for her book published by Michigan State University Press, titled “National Monuments.”

The award in the Novel and Short Story category went to Louise Erdrich for “The Plague of Doves,” from HarperCollins.

The Readers’ Choice Award went to Kao Kalia Yang for “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir.” This work also won the annual award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. “The Latehomecomer,” was published by Coffee House Press.

The award for Genre Fiction for 2008 went to debut novelist, Julie Kramer for her crime novel titled “Stalking Susan,” published by Doubleday.