INDIANAPOLIS — Six writers with Indiana ties have been named winners and finalists of the 2018 Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, a program of The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation funded through The Glick Fund, a fund of Central Indiana Community Foundation.
The winner of this year’s $10,000 National Author Award is New York Times bestselling children’s author Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, a former Ft. Wayne and Indianapolis resident whose 16 books for young readers include The War That Saved My Life, a Newbery Honor Medalist.
Indianapolis native Sandy Eisenberg Sasso has been named winner of the $7,500 Regional Author Award. Sasso, director of the Religion, Spirituality and the Arts Initiative at the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, is the author of two books for adults and 16 award-winning children’s books, including two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and recipient of the 2006 Best Books of Indiana Award.
Owen County resident James Alexander Thom is the winner of the $2,500 Lifetime Award. Thom’s carefully researched novels have sold more than 2 million copies. Follow the River, a 1981 novel about a pioneer woman captured by Shawnee Indians became a New York Times bestseller and is now in its 50th printing. His most recent book, Fire in the Water, is about the sinking of the steamboat Sultana during the Civil War.
Emerging Author Award finalists are Deborah E. Kennedy of Ft. Wayne, Elizabeth Klehfoth of Elkhart and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi of South Bend. All winning authors and finalists will be honored at the ninth annual Indiana Authors Award Dinner on Sat., Oct. 13 at Central Library. In addition to prize winnings, the winning authors will receive a $2,500 grant for the public library of his or her choice.
For more information about the Indiana Authors Award and festivities, visit indianauthorsaward.org.
