Finalists announced for 2008 Oklahoma Book Awards
Finalists announced for 2008 Oklahoma Book Awards

Thirty-two books have been chosen as finalists in the 19th annual Oklahoma Book Awards competition. Winners in the categories of fiction, poetry, design/illustration, children’s/young adult and non-fiction will be announced at the Oklahoma Book Awards banquet Saturday at the Edward L. Gaylord –T. Boone Pickens Oklahoma Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Sponsored by the Oklahoma Center for the Book, the awards recognize books written the previous year by Oklahomans or about Oklahoma.

In addition to the literary awards, historian, journalist and educator David Dary of Norman will be presented with the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award. The honor is named for the Norman historian who served as the Oklahoma Center for the Book’s first.

The late author, educator, and historian Danney Goble will receive the Ralph Ellison Award, which salutes lifetime achievement and is presented posthumously. Goble, who died two days before last year’s book awards, won the non-fiction award for The Historical Atlas of Oklahoma, Fourth Edition.

The following books, which are listed in alphabetical order according to the last name of the lead author, designer or illustrator, have been selected as finalists for the 2008 awards.

FICTION:

-- Harpsong; author, Rilla Askew; publisher University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

-- The Drop Edge of Yonder; author, Donis Casey; publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, Scottsdale, AZ.

-- Set Sail for Murder; author, Carolyn Hart; publisher, William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.

-- The Hellfire Conspiracy; author, Will Thomas; publisher, Touchstone Books, a division of Simon and Schuster , New York, NY.

-- Paper Hearts; author, Debrah Williamson; publisher, New American Library, a division of Penguin Group, New York, NY.

POETRY:

-- Reassembling Dust; poet, Fred Alsberg; publisher Pudding House Chapbook Series, Columbus, OH.

-- Not Exactly Job; poet, Nathan Brown; publisher Mongrel Empire Press, Norman.

-- Open Mike Thursday Night; poet, Jim Spurr; publisher Village Books Press, Cheyenne.

-- What Trees Know; poet, Sandra Soli, published by Greystone Press, Edmond.

DESIGN/ILLUSTRATION:

-- Oklahoma: A Portrait of America; designer, Carl Brune; photographer Scott Raffe; publisher, Billy Books, Tulsa.

-- Charles Banks Wilson; designer, Carol Haralson; publisher, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa.

-- Historic Photos of Oklahoma City; designers, Megan Latta and Larry Johnson; publisher Turner Publishing Co., Nashville, TN.

-- Celebrating Oklahoma! The Oklahoma Centennial Photographic Survey; photographer, Mike Klemme; publisher, Michael Lee Klemme, Enid.

-- Chickasaw Lives Vol. I: Exploration in Tribal History; designer Skip McKinstry; cover illustrator, Joshua D. Hinson; publisher, The Chickasaw Press, Ada.

-- What Cats Want for Christmas; illustrator Kandy Radzinski; publisher, Sleeping Bear Press, Chelsea, MI.

-- Stealing Home - Jackie Robinson: Against the Odds; illustrator, Mike Wimmer; publisher, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Adults.

CHILDREN/YOUNG ADULT:

-- Marked: A House of Night Novel; authors, P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast; publisher, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, NY.

-- Cam's Quest: The Continuing Story of Princess Nevermore and the Wizard's Apprentice; author, Dian Curtis Regan; publisher, Darby Creek Publishing, Plain City, OH.

-- Wart, author, Anna Myers; publisher, Walker & Co., New York, NY.

-- Two Bears' Run; author, A. E. Riddle; publisher, Publish America, Baltimore, MD.

-- Brewster the Rooster; author, Devin Scillian; publisher, Sleeping Bear Press, Chelsea, MI.

-- Pappy's Handkerchief; author, Devin Scillian; publisher, Sleeping Bear Press, Chelsea, MI.

-- When Turtle Grew Feathers; author, Tim Tingle; publisher, August House Little Folk, Atlanta, GA.

-- The Dog Who Thought He Was Santa; author, Bill Wallace; publisher, Holiday House, NY.

NON-FICTION:

-- Alternative Oklahoma: Contrarian Views of the Sooner State; editor, Davis D. Joyce; publisher, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

-- Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr; author, Nancy Isenberg; publisher, Viking Penguin, New York.

-- Choctaw Nation: A Story of American Indian Resurgence; author, Valerie Lambert; publisher, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE.

-- The Seminole Freedmen: A History; author, Kevin Mulroy; publisher, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

-- Ralph Ellison: A Biography; author, Arnold Rampersad; publisher, Alfred A. Knopf; New York, NY.

-- Voices from the Heartland; editors, Carolyn Anne Taylor, Emily Dial-Driver, Carole Burrage, and Sally Emmons-Featherston; publisher, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

-- Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride, author, Michael Wallis; publisher, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, NY.

-- Books on Trial: Red Scare in the Heartland; authors, Shirley A. Wiegand and Wayne A. Wiegand; publisher, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

David Dary, recipient of the 2008 Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award, has written fifteen books and more than 200 articles for newspapers and magazines. A professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Oklahoma, Dary retired in 2000, after eleven years as head of what is now the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Dary was born in Manhattan, Kansas in 1934. After graduating from Kansas State University, in 1956, and completing a stint in the Army Reserve, a newly-wed Dary went to work in the radio business in Texas. In the 1960s Dary worked in production and administration for CBS and NBC News in Texas and Washington D.C. In 1967, while at NBC, Dary wrote his first book, Radio News Handbook.

In the late 60s, after returning to Kansas for family reasons, Dary helped plan and build a new NBC television station in Topeka. In 1969, he joined the faculty of the journalism school at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He earned his master's degree in journalism during his first year of teaching. Over the next 20 years at KU, Dary rose to the rank of full professor.

His university teaching schedule allowed him time to write, and in 1974, Dary completed The Buffalo Book, which became a Book-of-the-Month selection. During this time he also began writing stories for the Kansas City Star's Sunday supplement— collected in True Tales of the Old-Time Plains (1979).

In 1981, Dary wrote Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries. Published by Alfred A. Knopf of New York, Cowboy Culture won several awards and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

The books that followed — including Seeking Pleasure in the Old West, Entrepreneurs of the Old West, The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends and Lore and The Oregon Trail: An American Saga — confirm his place as a leading authority on the American West.

Dary has received the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Wrangler Award, two Western Writers of America Spur Awards, the Westerners International Best Nonfiction Book Award and the Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement from the

Western Writers of America.

In 1989 the University of Oklahoma recruited Dary to head the School of Journalism, where he hired new faculty, rebuilt the program and guided the journalism school to a freestanding college. In 2007 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.

Goble was considered by friends, colleagues and students to be an exceptionally gifted teacher who made Oklahoma history and politics come alive. During his career, he taught at Tulsa Junior College (now Tulsa Community College), Rogers University (now Oklahoma State University–Tulsa), the University of Tulsa and the University of Oklahoma. He was recognized with several teaching awards.

Goble earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Central Oklahoma and his master’s degree at OU, but he discovered that Oklahoma history was “real history” while he was earning his doctorate at University of Missouri.

As an Oklahoman he was keenly aware of the inferiority complex that some Oklahomans tend to have about their state. He worked hard throughout the remainder of his adult life to help Oklahomans become better acquainted with their state’s history, especially the colorful events of the 20th Century. He traveled all around the state to speak about Oklahoma history wherever he was invited—in classrooms, libraries, civic groups, seminars, and conferences.

Author or co-author of eight books, he was a scholar who wrote with the polish of a professional writer, unmatched in his ability to tell a good story. This is particularly evident in two collaborative works, Little Giant: The Life and Times of Speaker Carl Albert, which won the Oklahoma Book Award and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and A Matter of Black and White: The Autobiography of Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, which was named the outstanding book in political science by the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

He also collaborated with David Baird in writing The Story of Oklahoma, a high school textbook that has been adopted by many public schools, and with Bob Goins on the award-winning fourth edition of Historical Atlas of Oklahoma. At the time of his death, he was co-authoring with Mike Cassity a book on the history of Presbyterianism in Oklahoma.

Goble’s first book, Progressive Oklahoma: The Making of a New Kind of State, remains a classic for its description regarding the impact of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory on the development of political traditions in the state.

For more information about the 2008 book awards or for tickets to the annual banquet, call 522-3575.

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