Authors Celebrated at Indies Choice Book Awards at BEA

The 15th annual Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Luncheon, held on Thursday, May 28, at BookExpo America, recognized the authors and illustrators who have helped to make bookselling meaningful, rewarding, fulfilling, and fun for independent booksellers over the past year.

During the ceremony, Oren Teicher, current CEO of the American Booksellers Association, shared a special tribute to former ABA CEO Avin Domnitz, who is facing health issues. “Amidst this wonderful renaissance of indie bookselling that he did so much to bring about, the scope and measure of his achievements are even more clear,” Teicher said of Domnitz. (Read more.)

Newly elected ABA Vice President Robert Sindelar, owner of Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park and Seattle, Washington, took the stage to present the 2015 Indies Choice Book Awards and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards. “The works of the authors and illustrators we have with us today have inspired us, enlightened us, emboldened us, empowered us, and have moved us to tears as well as to action. Their words and their art have served to give us the tools to potentially change the lives of the readers and the people who come into our stores. For that, we are immensely grateful,” said Sindelar.

Adult Fiction Indies Choice Awards

Before dashing uptown to another luncheon at Columbia University to pick up the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Anthony Doerr started off his afternoon at the Javits Center to accept the 2015 Indies Choice Award for Adult Fiction Book of the Year. Doerr’s bestselling, critically acclaimed novel All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner) was one that independent bookstores across the country have championed since naming it the #1 Indie Next List pick for May 2014.

Doerr graciously recognized the indispensable impact indie bookstores made when it came to his book’s success. “I don’t know how to tweet, I make a Facebook post about as often as I get a haircut, and except for a couple magazine ads and a luncheon, about half the publicity budget was spent on sending advanced reading copies, handwritten notes, and me to independent bookstores,” he said. “This book is reaching readers for one reason — because you’re suggesting folks give it a try. And a great deal of that still happens in an old fashioned way: eye-to-eye, inside actual bookstores, between human beings who share an enthusiasm for books. Thank you for being enthusiasts, thank you for honoring books, and thank you for honoring my favorite manmade institutions on earth: bookshops.”

Lev Grossman, author of The Magician Trilogy, was present at Thursday’s Author Awards Lunch to accept one of five Adult Fiction Honor Awards for The Magician’s Land (Viking), the last book in the series. “I want to thank you for doing for us writers what we could on no account ever do for ourselves if our lives depended on it, which they do,” Grossman said.

Adult Fiction Honor Award recipient Alice Hoffman, author of The Museum of Extraordinary Things (Scribner), said that, as she was growing up, The Paperback Bookseller on Long Island and her local library had an important influence on her. “I felt like I could pile up all of those books that I read and look out from the place where I lived to see there was another world out there,” she said.

Adult Nonfiction Indies Choice Awards

Dr. Atul Gawande, the surgeon, writer, and public health researcher whose book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (Metropolitan Books) won the Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year Award, sent a video message to thank indie booksellers for their support.

“I really give a lot of credit to independent bookstores and the personal way in which you all have encouraged people to look at the book, and let them know that it was actually an uplifting book to read and something that could matter to them,” said Gawande. “I think [death and dying is] a very scary subject and otherwise not something that people naturally want to jump into…It’s amazing to me how the book has resonated. I cannot thank you enough for the support that you’ve shown.”

New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast was one of five authors whose books received an Adult Nonfiction Honor Award. Chast called Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury), a sad, poignant, and funny collection of cartoons about her parents Elizabeth and George, the most personal book she has ever done. “I was a little anxious to put so much of myself out there in this book, so thank you all for promoting this book,” she said.

“I’m very grateful for all the work indie booksellers do to keep the love of reading alive, especially my local bookstore, Books on the Common — an amazing place,” Chast added. “To walk into an independent bookstore is one of the great pleasures of my life.”

Leslie Jamison accepted an Adult Nonfiction Honor Award for The Empathy Exams: Essays (Graywolf Press). “I spent so much of last year buoyed by the energy of indie booksellers,” said Jamison, noting the efforts that indies made to go above and beyond in sharing her book with readers.

Adult Debut Indies Choice Awards

Andy Weir, winner of the Adult Debut Book of the Year, also shared a video message with booksellers, thanking them for their support of The Martian (Crown). “Indies punch above their weight in this industry. You guys are the tastemakers,” he said. “There’s nothing better than having a bunch of enthusiastic local bookstores evangelizing your book to everyone they meet.”

E.B. White Read-Aloud Picture Book Awards

The E.B. White Read-Aloud Picture Book Award went to Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen for Sam and Dave Dig a Hole (Candlewick). Exchanging increasingly ridiculous (and fictional) stories of booksellers’ dedication to the two authors while they toured, Barnett and Klassen tried to outdo each other in their praise for independent booksellers.

Barnett earnestly acknowledged, in particular, booksellers who read the book out loud, whether during story time or one-on-one with customers. “This book is not just a collaboration between Jon and me, but it’s a collaboration between who reads this book out loud, too,” he said. “Thank you for sharing this book in your stores and getting it into so many hands.”

Klassen noted, “It was a bit of a trust fall, and you guys caught us in a big way with this story.”

Jory John, author of Goodnight Already! illustrated by Benji Davies (HarperCollins), accepted an E.B. White Read-Aloud Picture Book Honor Award. “Man alive, this is very exciting and daunting,” John gushed. “This is unreal to me. This is my first picture book out of the gate and for this to happen is unbelievable … I got a chance to travel around and meet a lot of booksellers and that was a really joyous experience. I feel like you and me are family now.”

E.B. White Read-Aloud Picture Book Honor Award recipient Matt de la Peña thanked booksellers for their support of Last Stop on Market Street (Putnam Young Readers), about a young African American boy and his grandmother, and announced, “My new mission is to write books featuring diverse characters in a story that has nothing to do with diversity.”

Richard T. Morris, recipient of an E.B. White Read-Aloud Picture Book Honor Award, expressed his thanks to the booksellers who voted for This Is a Moose (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) — especially those eight who took on the role of “The Moose” for his appearance at their stores, a task that involved a big furry moose costume.

“It’s a great honor for a writer to put down 800 words or so on a page and then to have the recognition like this,” Morris added.

E.B. White Read-Aloud Middle Reader Awards

Jacqueline Woodson, who took home the E.B. White Read-Aloud Middle Reader Award for Brown Girl Dreaming (Nancy Paulsen Books), told booksellers she was happy they had deemed her story, a poetic memoir based on her childhood as an African American girl growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, one worth sharing.

“Every time someone says to me that they’ve read this book or they’ve given it to someone, I feel like what they’re saying is that we matter, and that our stories and all stories have a right to be in this world. It’s been an amazing year of being able to spread this love around the world and to be able to [share] those voices that historically have been absent from the page and been absent as part of the bigger voice in the world,” she said. “If there was an award I could get that means so incredibly much to me, it is an award where independent booksellers have said, ‘We see you, your words matter, your stories matter.’”

Kenneth Oppel, author of the E.B. White Read-Aloud Middle Reader Honor Book The Boundless (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), recalled the many independent bookstores he had visited over the years. “I want to thank you so much for being independent booksellers and being the purveyors of book wisdom,” he said.

Jennifer Holm, author of The Fourteenth Goldfish (Random House Books for Young Readers), was also present to accept one of the five E.B. White Read-Aloud Honor Awards in the Middle Reader category. In her thank-you address, Holm, whose red dress that day recalled the character Orphan Annie, sang an ode to booksellers: “Booksellers, booksellers, I love ya, booksellers, you’re always an…edited book away!”

Mac Barnett and Jory John expressed their gratitude to booksellers for their support of Middle Reader Honor Book The Terrible Two (Amulet Books). “Your enthusiasm for The Terrible Two has meant so much to us. It’s changed our lives. Thank you for changing our lives,” said Barnett.

Young Adult Indies Choice Awards

The Young Adult Indies Choice Book Award went to Holly Black for The Darkest Part of the Forest (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers). Black noted her appreciation for the booksellers who graciously hosted her during her all-independent bookstore driving tour down the East Coast. “My favorite part was getting to visit so many unique, beautiful, amazing stores and, once again, getting to spend time with people who truly love books,” she said.

A.S. King, who took home one of five Young Adult Honor Awards for Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), told booksellers she owes her career to them. “If it wasn’t for independent bookstores, I wouldn’t actually have a career and I think it’s really important that I say that because I really believe it,” she said.

In her speech, King hearkened back to a time when many were skeptical that independent bookstores still had a place in modern literary society. “I remember years ago — about six years ago — [people would say] ‘Oh, independent booksellers are all going to die!’ and I said, ‘No, they’re not!’ I used to be an independent lettuce seller, and it turns out you all buy organic now, don’t you?” she said.

The 2015 Picture Book Hall of Fame Inductees

During the ceremony, three titles were inducted into the Indies Choice Picture Book Hall of Fame: Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (Viking Books for Young Readers); Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel (HarperCollins); and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond (HarperCollins).

Sally McCloskey accepted the Indies Choice Picture Book Hall of Fame Award for Blueberries for Sal. The daughter of Robert McCloskey and the inspiration for the book, Sally expressed her special thanks for the award and recognized the independents near her home in Maine. “We buy from our local booksellers; we are committed to that,” she said. “We patronize them all. We are so proud of them. They are persistent; they are not extinct.”

Indie Champion Award

This year, booksellers voted Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer (HarperCollins/Hachette) the 2015 recipients of the Indie Champion Award, which is presented to the author or illustrator “who booksellers feel has the best sense of the importance of independent bookstores to their communities at large and the strongest personal commitment to foster and support the mission and passion of independent booksellers.”

Internationally popular fantasy writer Gaiman and singer/author Palmer, who are married, were at the forefront of last year’s Indies First campaign and even sold books themselves at Spotty Dog Books & Ale in Hudson, New York, on Small Business Saturday, which coincided with the event.

The pair thanked booksellers in a video message shot at their favorite bookstore — Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “We’re really, really honored, but actually, the true thanks belongs to all of these incredible independent bookstores,” said Palmer.

Gaiman added that credit goes to “all you out there running your stores, ordering your books, selling them, and dealing with the strange and interesting people who come and buy your books.”

Indie Champion nominee Douglas Preston, representing Authors United, commended booksellers for their work. “You do not just sell books, you actually perform a most vital role in our society, in our democracy, and in our culture,” Preston said.

Commenting on the current state of bookselling and Amazon’s position in particular, Preston recalled the history of the American government’s efforts to prevent the concentration of ownership over any market. “This has been a vital part of our democracy, keeping our marketplaces of information free, competitive, and full of choice,” he said. “Never before in American history have we allowed a single corporation to gain monopoly control of a vital marketplace of ideas. I think this is something worth thinking about.” —Liz Button and Sydney Jarrard