NH Writers' Project - Literary Awards

2009 New Hampshire Literary Award Winners
November 14, 2009, at Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester

Lifetime Achievement Award: David Carroll

MacArthur “Genius” Grant Winner, David M. Carroll is the author and illustrator of three widely acclaimed natural histories, The Year of the Turtle, Trout Reflections and Swampwalker's Journal (the wet sneaker trilogy). In 2004, Carroll released his semi-autobiography Self Portrait with Turtles. David's art and writing, as well as his extensive fieldwork with turtles and wetlands, has been widely featured and nationally recognized. His book Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook was recently named a finalist for the National Book Award.

The members of the NHWP Board were proud to select Carroll as this year’s Lifetime Achievement award. His outstanding literary and artistic accomplishments combined with his commitment to the arts and literary community of New Hampshire made him a clear choice.

Outstanding Book of Fiction
James Patrick Kelly, The Wreck of the Godspeed

James Patrick Kelly won the 2007 Nebula award for Best Novella for his book Burn. He has won the Hugo award twice, and, in addition to being a science fiction writer, is an essayist, poet, and playwright. Kelly has co-edited three anthologies, the most recent of which The Secret History of Science Fiction, with John Kessel, was published last month. He writes an online column for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Kelly is currently the Vice Chair of the Clarion Foundation.

Judges, Monica Wood, Barbara Dimmick, and Anne LeClare said “The Wreck of the Godspeed is a luminous example of how a gifted writer can break the boundaries of genre. James Patrick Kelly’s writing will delight any reader who appreciates imaginative storytelling and masterly prose.

Outstanding Book of Nonfiction
Mimi Schwartz, Good Neighbors, Bad Times

Mimi Schwartz most recent book is Good Neighbors, Bad Times - Echoes of My Father’s German Village, a winner of the ForeWord Book of the Year Award in Memoir and the New Hampshire Literary Awards in Nonfiction.Other books include Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed, a marriage memoir, and Writing True, the Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction, used in over 250 writing programs nationwide and abroad. Her short work has appeared in The New York Times, The Missouri Review, Agni, Creative Nonfiction, Jewish Week, the Writer’s Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor and Tikkun, among others..Six of other essays have been Notables in Best American Essays. Schwartz is Professor Emerita of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and lives in Princeton, New Jersey and Sunapee, New Hampshire. For more information go to www.mimischwartz.net/

Judges Robert Gray, Robert Miller, and Benjamin Watson chose Good Neighbors, Bad Times because “the book inspires thought, both about the process of writing “history” from the source level like this, and about the influence of remembering, forgetting, self-historicizing events of the past to make sense of a traumatic time.”

Outstanding Work of Children’s Literature
Lita Judge, Pennies for Elephants

Lita Judge's picture books often show young people as active members of history and their community. Her first book, "One Thousand Tracings”, recounts the true story of a relief effort her mother and grandparents started after WWII. It won the International Reading Association Children’s Book Award, was selected as the 2008 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Honor, and is an American Library Association Notable Children's Book. She turned to her love for New England in writing and illustrating "Pennies for Elephants", a book that celebrates children who’s fundraising effort in 1914, brought the first elephants to the Franklin Park Zoo. Lita lives with her husband in Peterborough, NH. Find out more about her work at www.LitaJudge.com.

Judges, Ray Coutu, Marie Harris, and Deborah Fogg were impressed with the way that Lita Judge peppered “her narrative with actual clippings from the newspaper of the period, lending an added touch of realism.”

Joseph Monninger, Hippie Chick

Joseph Monninger has published eleven novels and three non-fiction books. His work has appeared in American Heritage, Scientific American, Readers Digest, Glamour, Playboy, Story, Fiction, The Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated and Ellery Queen, among other publications. He has twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and has also received a fellowship from the New Hampshire Council for the Arts. His young adult novel, Baby, was awarded the 2008 award for best children’s literature from the Peace Corps Writers. It was also chosen as a top ten book by YALSA, the American Library Association. The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s’ Books awarded Hippie Chick, a young adult novel, a blue ribbon for a top book of 2008. His latest novel, Eternal on the Water, will be published by Pocketbooks in February 2010.

Judges, Ray Coutu, Marie Harris, and Deborah Fogg call Monninger “the consummate storyteller with a deep commitment to preserving the natural world and our fragile connection to it.” They praised Hippie Chick as “a compelling, coming-of-age novel with a strong, authentic voice.”

The Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry:
Mimi White, The Last Island

Mimi White has lived and worked in the seacoast of New Hampshire for more than fourty years. As a visiting poet, she travelled around the state of New Hampshire inspiring students of all ages to create authentic and imaginative work. A finalist and recipient of a NH State Fellowship, Mimi has published poems in several journals including Poetry, The Harvard Review and Rivendell. In 2000, Robert Creeley selected Mimi's chapbook, The Singed Horizon, as the winner of the Philbrick Poetry Award. Mimi was the 2005-2007 Portsmouth Poet Laureate. During the summers of those years, Mimi was an Artist-in Residence at Schoodic Penninsula, Acadia National Park. Currently, she is working to reduce the effects of global warming as a member of Rye, New Hampshire's Energy Committee. The Last Island is her first full-length book.

Judges, Cynthia Huntington, Betsy Sholl, and Daniel Tobin, called the poems in The Last Island “at once vividly observed and finely calibrated to the kind of emotional nuance that escapes so many poets writing today.”

Donald M. Murray Outstanding Journalism Award:
John Walters, Collection of articles from Kearsarge Magazine and Upper Valley Life

John Walters is a writer, editor, and voice artist from East Montpelier, Vermont. He is managing editor of The Bridge, a weekly newspaper based in Montpelier. His articles have been published in several magazines, including Yankee, New Hampshire Magazine, New Hampshire Business Review, Kearsarge Magazine, and Upper Valley Life. His first book, tentatively entitled Portraits from Life, is due out in the spring of 2010. From 2000 to 2005, John worked at New Hampshire Public Radio. He was the creator and host of The Front Porch, an award-winning daily interview program. He left the radio business in 2005 to concentrate on writing. He lives in East Montpelier with his wife Evan Eyler, two cockatiels, and a rabbit.

Judges, Robert Gray, Robert Miller, and Benjamin Watson, looked for certain things as they chose this year’s winner. “The writing has to sparkle; it can’t be humdrum; word choices periodically should make you say ‘aha!’ That’s not to say topics can’t be flighty or frivolous; they just have to be worth our time. John Walters’ entries meet these tests, and pass quite nicely.”

All awards, except Lifetime Achievement, are given for an outstanding book (or collection of articles for the Journalism Award) that is written by a New Hampshire resident or native or that deals with subject matter deemed by the judges to be inherently connected to New Hampshire.