TEXAS INSTITUTE OF LETTERS
ANNOUNCES LITERARY WINNERS
(Dallas) – Jan Reid’s frontier novel revolving around Quanah Parker, Comanche Sundown, and Gary Lavergne’s
account of the struggle to desegregate the University of Texas law school, Before Brown: Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall and the Long
Road to Justice, were the top winners at
the Texas Institute of Letters’ awards banquet Saturday, April 30, 2011.
Reid, a long-time Texas Monthly writer who lives in
Austin, received a $6,000 prize for the top honor in the Jesse Jones Fiction
Award. TCU Press was the publisher.
Lavergne, director of
Admissions Research and Policy Analysis at The University of Texas at Austin,
earned $5,000 as the winner of the Carr P. Collins contest for nonfiction. His
book was published by the University of Texas Press.
TIL, founded in 1936 to recognize literary
achievement and promote interest in Texas literature, is the state’s oldest
literary organization.
Cash prizes presented at
the banquet at the Radisson Hotel Central Dallas totaled more than $20,000.
C.W. Smith, novelist and
creative writing professor at Southern Methodist University, was named winner
of the Lon Tinkle Award for sustained excellence in a literary career.
Fourteen new members
were inducted into the organization. They were Kathi Appelt, Alwyn Barr,
Douglas Brinkley, Bryan Burrough, Annette Gordon-Reed, S.C. Gwynne, Russell L.
Martin III, Karla K. Morton, Jake Silverstein, James Smallwood, Dominic Smith,
Jerry Thompson, John Waugh, and Robert Wooster.
Winners in other
categories were Neil Foley, Quest for
Equality: The Failed Promise of Black-Brown Solidarity (Harvard University
Press), for the best scholarly book;
Bruce Machart, The Wake of Forgiveness (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt), for the best first novel;
Barbara
Ras, The Last Skin ( Penguin Poets)
for the Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for Poetry;
Elyse Fenton, Clamor
(Cleveland State University Poetry Center), for the Bob Bush
Memorial
Award for First Book of Poetry;
Pamela Colloff, “Innocence Lost,” Texas Monthly, October 2010, for
the
O. Henry Award for Magazine Journalism;
C.W. Smith, “Caustic,” Southwest Review (Summer 2010), for the Kay Cattarulla Award for
Best Short Story;
Tim Madigan, for his
five-part series on the surgery of a child appearing in the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Stanley Walker Newspaper Journalism Award;.
Julie
Savasky and DJ Stout, designers for Roy Flukinger’s book, The Gernsheim Collection, University of Texas Press/Harry Ransom
Center, Fred Whitehead Award for Design of a Trade Book;
Diane
Gonzales Bertrand, The Party for
Papa Luis/ La Fiesta Para Papa Lui (Arte Publico Press), Austin Public
Library Friends Foundation Award for Children’s Book; and
Dotti Enderle, Crosswire, (Boyds Mills Press), Austin
Public Library Friends Foundation Award, Young Adult Book.