Award Winners to Headline Celebration Luncheon

The American Booksellers Association announced this week that all of the winners of the 2012 Indies Choice Book Awards and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards will be attending the June 5 Celebration of Bookselling Author Awards Luncheon at BookExpo America.

The winners, who will accept their awards at the event open exclusively to booksellers at ABA member stores, are:

• Jeffrey Eugenides, Fiction winner, for The Marriage Plot (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Gabrielle Hamilton, Adult Nonfiction winner, for Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef (Random House)
• Téa Obreht, Adult Debut winner, for The Tiger’s Wife (Random House)
• Ruta Sepetys, Young Adult winner, for Between Shades of Gray (Philomel)
• Maile Meloy, E.B. White Middle Reader winner, for The Apothecary (Putnam Juvenile)
• Colin Meloy, author, and Carson Ellis, illustrator,E.B. White Middle Reader winners, for Wildwood (Balzer + Bray),
• Jon Klassen, E.B. White Picture Book winner, for I Want My Hat Back (Candlewick Press)
• Ann Patchett, Most Engaging Author winner

This year’s Honor Book recipients have also been invited to attend, and, to date, 12 are planning to be there, including M.T. Anderson, Carmen Agra Deedy, Andre Dubus III, Marla Frazee, John Green, Tom Lichtenheld, Marie Lu, Lauren Oliver, Joe Schrieber, Brian Selznick, Simon Van Booy, and Jesmyn Ward.

The Celebration Luncheon will be held from 12:15 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday, June 5, in the Javits Convention Center’s Special Events Hall.

A limited number of seats are still available, and ABA is encouraging booksellers who want to be a part of this stellar event to make their reservations now. The Celebration Luncheon is free and open exclusively to two booksellers at each ABA member store. Don’t miss out: complete the online reservation form now.

Questions regarding the lunch should be addressed to Mark Nichols, ABA development officer.