Christina Baker Kline took top honors at the Maine Literary Awards on Thursday night at SPACE Gallery in Portland, winning the Book Award for Fiction for her novel “A Piece of the World” inspired by an Andrew Wyeth painting set in Maine.
Other top winners were Richard Cass, who won the award for crime fiction for “Solo Time”; John Crowley, who won in the speculative fiction category for “Ka”; Frances FitzGerald, who won the top non-fiction award for “The Evangelicals”; and Meadow Merrill, who won the memoir award for “Redeeming Ruth.”
Other winners were Julia Bouwsma for poetry, Jacqueline Tourville for children’s writing, Gillian French for young people’s literature, and Valerie Lawson for editing “3 Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian & New England.”
The John N. Cole Award for Maine-themed Nonfiction went to Jim Krosschell for “One Man’s Maine.” The Excellence in Publishing award went to “There Has To Be Magic” by Donna Marie McNeil and Christina Shipps, published by Maine Authors Publishing. The drama award for film, theater and other scripts went to Michael D. Burke.
In the short works category, Zach Brockhouse won for fiction, Leslie Moore for nonfiction and Lee Sharkey for poetry.
In the youth competition, winners were Makena Deveraux for fiction, Ayub Mohamud for nonfiction and Wilson Haims for poetry. (Look for their complete entries on the Books page in Audience in this week’s Maine Sunday Telegram.)
The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance sponsors the awards, which recognized books published in 2017. This year, 145 books were entered.
Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at:
bkeyes@pressherald.com
Twitter: pphbkeyes
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