BTW News Briefs

New Bill Moyers Series to Feature Authors on Faith & Reason

Bill Moyers will host a new mini-series, Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason, premiering June 23 at 9:00 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The show will feature provocative conversations with authors from around the world who gathered for the PEN World Voices Festival in New York in April. During the course of the seven hour-long weekly episodes, Moyers will explore these writers' works and their own experiences to examine the role of religion in shaping our world. Authors to be featured are: Martin Amis (Great Britain), Margaret Atwood (Canada), Mary Gordon (U.S.), David Grossman (Israel), Colin McGinn (Great Britain/U.S.), Richard Rodriguez (U.S.), Salman Rushdie (India/Great Britain), Anne Provoost (Belgium), and Jeanette Winterson (Great Britain).

The series will be supported by a companion Web site at www.pbs.org/moyers where visitors can interact, give feedback, and discuss the issues presented in the series.

Boston Globe-Horn Book Winners Announced

On June 6, Horn Book, Inc. announced the winners of the 2006 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children's Literature. First presented in 1967, the awards are given in three categories: Fiction and Poetry, Nonfiction, and Picture Book. This year's winners are:

• Fiction and Poetry: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Candlewick)
• Nonfiction: Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert (Harcourt)
• Picture Book: If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty; illustrated by Steven Kellogg (Scholastic)

The 2006 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards ceremony will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, at the Boston Atheneum on Friday, October 13.

Zadie Smith Wins Orange Prize

On June 6, Zadie Smith was awarded the 11th Orange Prize for Fiction for her third novel, On Beauty (Penguin). At a ceremony in central London hosted by Orange Prize for Fiction Cofounder and Honorary Director Kate Mosse, Smith received the 30,000 prize and the "Bessie," a limited edition bronze figurine. The 2006 Orange Award for New Writers went to Naomi Alderman for her novel Disobedience (Viking). The prize was 10,000.

The Orange Prize for Fiction was established in 1996 to celebrate and promote fiction written by women throughout the world to the widest range of readers possible. The Orange Prize is awarded to the best novel of the year written in English by a woman.