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PEN Southwest Book Awards Honor Dedication to Literature and Language
November 23, 2005
Story Continued...
2005 PEN Southwest Book Awards Honor Dedication to Literature and Language
PEN New Mexico and PEN Texas collaborated to present the inaugural PEN Southwest Book Awards to honor excellence in writing by PEN members on Saturday October 22nd in a public ceremony held at La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe. A keynote address by Donald Lamm, whose forty-four year career at W.W. Norton & Company encompassed the roles of editor, president and former chairman of the independent publisher, and a talk on “Writers in the New Global Community” by PEN USA President Kate Gale were also a draw for the standing room only event. The winners of the Southwest Book Awards were announced and presented with $500 prizes in each of three categories at the festive awards ceremony.
The winners of the PEN Southwest Book Awards are:
Fiction
Rod Davis, Corina’s Way. (NewSouth Books).
Poetry
Lise Goett, Waiting for the Paraclete. (Beacon Press).
Nonfiction
Malka Drucker, White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America. (Skylight Paths Publishing).
Nominated authors, editors and other literary lions packed the banquet room. Exiled writer Fernando Garavito of Bogota, who published details linking narcotrafficers to the current government in Colombia, attended the awards. Garavito is now completing his M.A studies at UNM while living in New Mexico under the auspices of the PEN NM—Cities of Asylum project, which offers refuge to authors imperiled by their writing. Established in the US by the International Institute of Modern Letters, the project is supported locally by the Lannan and McCune Foundations as well as by private contributions.
PEN New Mexico, a chapter of the world’s oldest human’s rights organization, serves the community of Southwestern writers and is dedicated to actively defending the freedom to write and to fostering the literary community.
Complete shortlist of finalists for the 2005 Southwest Book Awards :
Fiction
Rudolfo Anaya, Serafina’s Stories. (University of New Mexico Press).
Rod Davis, Corina’s Way. (NewSouth Books).
Lisa Lenard-Cook, Dissonance. (University of New Mexico Press).
Poetry
Kay Barnes, Mortal Means. (Cherry Grove Collections).
Lise Goett, Waiting for the Paraclete. (Beacon Press).
Frederick Turner, Paradise. (David Roberts Books).
Nonfiction
Malka Drucker, White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America. (Skylight Paths Publishing).
Carroll Pickett, Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain. (St. Martin’s Press).
Diane Thiel, The White Horse: A Colombian Journey. (Etruscan Press).