BTW News Briefs

Sourcebooks Launches “Bookstore Blackout Challenge”

Sourcebooks has launched the Bookstore Blackout Challenge, which will award $2,000 to two independent bookstores and a total of $1,000 in reader prizes.

The challenge is in honor of the independent publisher’s release of the U.S. edition of Marc Elsberg’s internationally bestselling novel, Blackout, on June 6.

Challenge rules state that anyone can nominate their independent bookstore. The store with the most votes and the store with the most creative #BlackoutChallenge social media campaign will each win $2,000. In addition, each customer who votes for their local independent bookstore will be entered to win a $250 gift card to the store plus a blackout survival kit, including a tent, sleeping bag, books, flashlight, and food. Twelve readers will receive a $50 gift card to their local indie.

The challenge begins Monday, May 1, and runs through Wednesday, May 31. The winning stores will be announced in June. Booksellers can find further details in this Sourcebooks video.

Ingram Announces New Associates and Promotions

This week, the Ingram Content Group announced several promotions and new hires. Among them:

Elenita Chmilowski has been named library marketing manager for all Ingram distribution brands. She came to Ingram from Perseus, where she was most recently national accounts manager for Perseus Distribution and director of library sales for Perseus Books Group.

Jillian Lyn Farley has joined Ingram as manager for trade shows and events at Ingram Content Group.

Katie Edwards has been promoted to client manager for Ingram Publisher Services. Most recently, she was managing the combined Berkeley office for Ingram Publisher Services and PGW.

Sanford Hernandez was promoted to manager, specialty retail, for Ingram Publisher Services. He previously was focused on special sales for Ingram.

Tricia Remark is a new marketing manager for international sales at Ingram Publisher Services in the New York office. She will manage international sales’ overall marketing strategy for PGW, Legato, Consortium, Perseus Distribution, and Ingram client publishers. Remark was previously promotions and trade show manager at Workman Publishing.

6 Adult, 6 Children’s Titles Win Christopher Awards

Six adult and six children’s books have been named the recipients of the 2017 Christopher Awards, which honor books, television programs, and films that “affirm the highest values of the human spirit.”

The awards will be presented at a gala in New York City on May 16.

This year’s book winners are:

Books for Adults:

• Carry On: A Story of Resilience, Redemption, and an Unlikely Family by Lisa Fenn (Harper Wave/Harper Collins)
• The Hundred Story Home: A Journey of Homelessness, Hope, and Healing by Kathy Izard (Grace Press)
• Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent’s Expectations by Ron Fournier (Harmony Books/Crown Publishing)
• Operating on Faith: A Painfully True Love Story by Matt Weber (Loyola Press)
• Pint-Sized Prophets: Inspirational Moments That Taught Me We Are All Born to Be Healers by Dr. Chuck Dietzen (Advantage Publishing)
• Spaceman: An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike Massimino (Crown Archetype/Crown Publishing)

Books for Young People

• Baby Wren and the Great Gift by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Jen Corace (Preschool and up; Zonderkidz/Harper Collins Christian Publishing)
• What Do You Do With a Problem? by Kobi Yamada, illustrated by Mae Besom (Kindergarten and up; Compendium)
• Ida, Always by Caron Levis, illustrated by Charles Santoso (Ages 6 and up; Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
• Ada’s Violin by Susan Hood, illustrated by Sally Wern Comport (Ages 8 and up; Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
• Soar by Joan Bauer (Ages 10 and up;Viking/Penguin Young Readers Group)
• Unbound by Ann E. Burg (Young Adult; Scholastic Press/Scholastic)

Hisham Matar Wins PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

Hisham Matar was awarded the inaugural PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for his memoir The Return (Penguin Random House) on Monday night, March 27, at the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony. The theme of the event, which featured musical performances, dramatic readings, and celebrity presenters, was “Books Across Borders.”

“Determined to reject attempts to isolate the United States from the world, we centered this year’s awards ceremony on the power of literature to surmount cultural, ideological, and geographic bounds,” said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN America.

The night’s other honorees included PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater awardee for Master American Dramatist Suzan-Lori Parks; Academy Award-winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, who announced he would donate his award money from the Pels Award for American Playwright in Mid-Career to the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center; and Bill Nack, author of Secretariat: The Making of a Champion, for lifetime achievement in sportswriting.

Other awards announced live on Monday night included the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature to Adonis, known as the greatest living poet of the Arab world; the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction to Rion Amilcar Scott for Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky), his debut collection of stories; and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay to Angela Morales for The Girls in My Town (University of New Mexico Press), an anthology of essays on her experience as a Mexican-American woman growing up in Los Angeles.

The winners for all 2017 PEN America Literary Awards can be found at PEN.org.

NYPL Names Five Finalists for Young Lions Fiction Award

The New York Public Library has announced the five finalists for its Young Lions Fiction Award. The $10,000 prize is awarded each spring to a writer age 35 or younger for a novel or a collection of short stories.

This year’s finalists are:

• Clare Beams, We Show What We Have Learned (Lookout Books)
• Brit Bennett, The Mothers (Riverhead)
• Kaitlyn Greenidge, We Love You, Charlie Freeman (Algonquin)
• Nicole Dennis-Benn, Here Comes the Sun (Liveright)
• Karan Mahajan, The Association of Small Bombs (Penguin)

The prize, established in 2001, is part of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions program, a membership group for people in their 20s and 30s who are committed to supporting the library and to celebrating young writers and artists who elevate the city’s culture. The award will be given at a ceremony on Thursday, June 1, at the library.