BTW News Briefs

Deadline for NEIBA's Rusty Drugan Scholarship June 15

Members of the New England Independent Booksellers Association who are interested in applying for the association's Rusty Drugan Scholarship must submit an application by June 15. NEIBA established the scholarship in memory of Wayne "Rusty" Drugan, executive director of NEIBA from 1992 to 2006. The scholarship includes three nights at the NEIBA 2007 Trade Show Headquarters Hotel and two tickets to each meal function.

Applicants must presently be working full-time in a NEIBA member bookstore for at least a year. Candidates may apply directly for the scholarship or be nominated by others in the book industry. Self-nominees should describe in detail their background, their reasons for interest in the award, and include a copy of their resume. Those nominating someone else should indicate in detail why they are nominating the person. Nominations/applications must include all the following information for both the applicant and the nominator: Name, Store Name, Current Position, and Store Address.

Nominations should be sent to NEIBA, 297 Broadway, #212, Arlington, MA 02474 or e-mail nan@neba.org.

Winners of the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize Announced

The winners of the second annual Lulu Blooker Prize, the world's first contest to honor "blooks," a new, hybrid literary form at the cutting edge of both literature and technology, were announced this week. My War: Killing Time in Iraq (Berkley), by Colby Buzzell, was the Overall Winner and Nonfiction Winner. Winning the Fiction category was The Doorbells of Florence (Prandial Publishing) by British blogger Andrew Losowsky. This collection of short stories based on photographs was self-published through Lulu.com. The winner of the Comics category was Mom's Cancer (Abrams Image), by Brian Fies. Mom's Cancer, an Eisner Award-winning webcomic, is Fies' true account of his mother's struggle with metastatic lung cancer.

The second annual Lulu Blooker Prize is sponsored by Lulu (www.lulu.com), the self-publishing website and marketplace for digital content. The inaugural prize, awarded last year, stirred worldwide interest.