WNBA Award Nominations — Deadline Fast Approaching

Dear WNBA Members:

Once again, it’s time to nominate a “living American woman who derives a part or all of her income from books and allied arts and who has performed meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation” for our WNBA Award, which will be presented in June 2019 in Washington, DC as part of our National Meeting.

Roz Reisner, dedicated archives miner, shares that the WNBA Award saw its origins in 1939 as a way of honoring Constance Lindsay Skinner, a WNBA beacon who envisioned expanding the organization’s membership across the country. In addition to her professional work as a writer, she provided initial funding for The Bookwoman, which led to the formation of chapters in different cities. This capsule biography offers a taste of her life:

“Born in 1879 at a trading post in British Columbia, CLS became famous as a novelist, historian, juvenile book author, dramatist, and at the time of her death in 1939, editor of the Rivers of America series. Her American frontier stories included ‘Silent Scot: Frontier Scout’ (1925) and ‘Red Man’s Luck’ (1931) and the historical ‘Adventures in Oregon’ (1920). She spent her childhood among fur traders, Indians, and mounted police. She attended school in Vancouver, wrote her first story when she was 5, produced her own 3-act operetta at 14, contributed to newspapers at 16, and while still in her teens got a job on a Los Angeles newspaper. Later she moved to New York and wrote fiction, poetry and historical books. Articles and motion pictures made of her works are still in use in schools.” (Bookwoman, Vol. 27, no. 1, May 1964)

Look over the list of previous winners. Does your nominee fit in this stellar company?

Keep a few things in mind:

• Consider nominating a woman whose work seems to have escaped notice, but whose impact is great. For example, 2010 winner Masha Hamilton, who founded the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, is a beam of light in the encroaching darkness in the lives of women who’ve been swept from modern life to medieval conditions in a matter of decades.
• Nominate a woman likely to attend our award ceremony in June 2019 in Washington, DC, who doesn’t already have a wall of awards, who will partner with WNBA in raising both her profile and ours.
• Your nominee may not be an author. Perhaps she’s a publisher, a blogger, a bookseller (like 2012 winner Ann Patchett, founder of Parnassus Books in Nashville), a literacy champion, an illustrator, a poet . . .

Download the Nomination Form, and either in consultation with members of your chapter, or on your own (or both!), nominate an outstanding bookwoman. You are welcome to nominate more than one, but each on a separate form please.

Instructions on what to include, and when and how to submit your nomination, are on the form. Questions? Contact NC Weil, WNBA Award Chair, at ncweil2@gmail.com.

Deadline for nominations: November 25, 2018.