SEBA Announces Book Award Winners

The Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) recently announced the winners of the SEBA Book Awards. The winners of the 2002 awards will be honored at the "Rep Appreciation, Book Awards, and More Celebration" at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida on Thursday, September 19. The Awards are given to recognize the year's best books either by a Southern author or set in the South.

This year’s winners are:

• Children’s Books -- How Animals Saved the People: Animal Tales From the South by J.J. Reneaux, illustrated by James Ransome (HarperCollins Juvenile Books)
  
• Nonfiction -- Ava’s Man by Rick Bragg (Knopf)
  
• Fiction -- The Bridge by Doug Marlette (HarperCollins)
  

SEBA has also announced that nominations are open for the 2003 book awards. Nominations may be sent via e-mail to sebajewell@aol.com. Nominations must include the name of the bookstore the nomination is coming from and the author, title, and publisher of the nominated book(s). Only current SEBA bookstore members can nominate titles, and stores may nominate an unlimited number of books in all categories. The categories are Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Children’s and, new this year, Cookbook. To be eligible, a book has to be by a Southern author, and/or be about the South, and it must have been published in the calendar year 2002. The author must be living at the time of the nomination. An author can only win once in a given category.

The nominated titles will be provided to a pool of designated SEBA bookstore members who will be responsible for creating a ballot. The ballot will be sent to each member store at the end of the year.