Connecting Readers and Ohio Writers
MEDIA RELEASE – July 18, 2016
2016 Ohioana Award winners Announced
Literary prizes to be presented September 23 at Ohio Statehouse
Columbus, OH (July 18, 2016) —The Ohioana Library has announced the winners of the 2016 Ohioana Book Awards.
The awards, established in 1942, honor Ohio authors in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Juvenile Literature, and Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature. The final category, About Ohio or an Ohioan, may also include books by non-Ohio authors. The Ohioana Awards are among the oldest and longest-established state literary prizes in the nation.
“From the nearly 300 books that were eligible for this year’s awards, thirty finalists in six categories were selected by jurors,” said David Weaver, Executive Director of the Ohioana Library. “To make this short list is itself recognition of excellence and selecting a winner is a challenge. The books and authors chosen as 2016’s honorees are truly stellar.”
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the awards, which will be presented at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Friday, September 23.
The winners are:
Fiction
Mary Doria Russell. Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral. Ecco, 2015.
Nonfiction
Wil Haygood. Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That
Changed America. Knopf, 2015.
About Ohio or an Ohioan
David McCullough. The Wright Brothers. Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Poetry
Nin Andrews. Why God Is a Woman. BOA Editions Ltd., 2015.