Two Independent Booksellers Among PageTurner Award Winners

Booksellers Nancy Quinn of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee and Mary Gay Shipley of That Bookstore in Blytheville (Arkansas) were among the 34 winners of the first annual James Patterson PageTurner Awards.

The PageTurner Awards, which were launched this past July by author James Patterson and Time Warner Book Group, are intended to single out and support people, companies, schools, and other institutions that find original and effective ways to promote the excitement of books.

The PageTurner Awards' focus is less about literacy and more about getting current readers reading more, explained Patterson in a July interview in BTW. Patterson sees potential for many could-be readers to change their habits -- an effort he envisions helping counter the sharp decline in reading reported by last year's National Endowment for the Arts' study, "Reading at Risk."

"It's about people who can read, but don't, or don't very much," he said. "We need to convert more people to the idea that books are exciting."

This year, the PageTurner Awards announced two $25,000-prize winners, seven $5,000-prize winners, and 25 $1,000-award winners.

Quinn, who is marketing director for Harry W. Schwartz, was one of the $1,000 winners. She was singled out for spearheading a "nationally recognized author appearance program called Live at Schwartz, hosting about 250 authors a year (up from 40 a year in 2001) in five stores."

Quinn was delighted when she received word that she had won a PageTurner. "It was a great honor to be nominated," she told BTW. "I didn't except to win.... I think it's kind of fun to be part of the first group [of winners]. The award itself is for [promoting] reading and books." She said she plans to donate part of her winnings to Literacy Services of Wisconsin and another portion to a state program that provides books for newborns.

Shipley, also a $1,000 award winner, was recognized for "promoting books, authors, and reading in Small Town America for an admirable 29 years.... Mary Gay's ceaseless enthusiasm about books and reading has created a thriving book community in a relatively poor state with a low literacy rate." The PageTurner Awards cited Shipley's "boundless determination and her countless programs to help children and adults catch her fever about books and reading."

"It's wonderful," Shipley said, noting that she would talk with her staff about where they might spend the winnings. "I know the Chamber of Commerce is trying to start a children's library, so we might do that. But I have to get the staff together to discuss it. They're the reason we won it."

Among the other winners, the Dallas County Community Colleges was awarded the $25,000 PageTurner School of the Year award for instituting and actively maintaining an annual citywide "African-American Read-In" for all schools -- elementary and up -- in the community. Litquake, the San Francisco literary festival, won the second $25,000 PageTurner of the Year Award for involving "the entire population of the sixth largest city in the country" and "highlighting the lively, wilder side of the literary world." For the complete list of PageTurner winners, go to www.pattersonpageturner.org/.--David Grogan