This past weekend, the Library of Virginia announced their 14th annual Library of Virginia Literary Award winners, honoring both Virginia authors of fiction and authors of non-fiction on a Virginia subject.
Most exciting for us here at JSRCC is the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Non-Fiction winner, Rebecca Skloot, for her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a wonderful piece of research and writing on the fascinating human story behind the development of the HeLa cell for cancer research. This book will be featured in our third Around the World Through Books event of the 2011-2012 year on Thursday, March 29th.
Other winners include Earl Hamner, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award, and is the beloved author of The Homecoming; a Novel About Spencer Mountain. Belle Boggs, another Virginia native, received the Emyl Jenkins Sexton Literary Award for Fiction for Mattaponi Queen: Stories, a beautifully written collection of short stories set on Virginia’s Mattaponi Indian Reservation and in the surrounding counties.
Jan Karon was the winner of the People’s Choice Award in Fiction for In the Company of Others, one of her many popular novels about Father Tim. In this recent book, he is off to Ireland for a 64th birthday celebration for his wife, Cynthia.
Read these award-winning books and more at your JSRCC Libraries!
