WAYNE – Make plans to celebrate Nebraska Books beginning mid-October as the winners of the 2020 Nebraska Book Awards were recently announced.
According to a release from the Nebraska Library Commission, 12 different categories were highlighted with one being a member of the WSC Press.
Mark Sanders wrote ‘In a Good Time’ and won the category Poetry Humor. The book was published in September of 2019 and took about five years to complete. The poems were finished between 2015 and the summer of 2019, per the wscpress.com website.
Sanders, born in Creighton, was raised on the eastern rim of the Sandhills at Ord. He has taught in Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Idaho and Texas.
Among his books of poetry, ‘Landscapes, with Horses’ (2018) was awarded the 2019 Western Heritage “Wrangler” Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. His edited works include ‘A Sandhills Reader: 30 Years of Great Writing from the Great Plains’ and ‘The Weight of the Weather: Regarding the Poetry of Ted Kooser’, both recipients of the Nebraska Book Award, in 2016 and 2018 respectively. In 2007, he was awarded the Mildred Bennett Award for fostering Nebraska’s literary heritage.
Sanders is currently Associate Dean of the College of Liberal and Applied Arts at Stephen F. Austin State University at Nacogdoches, Texas, where he and his wife Kimberly Verhines operate a small farm.
According to the WSC Press website (wscpress.com) upcoming events include Zoom readings of the Plains Writers Series on October 21 at 4 p.m. by Jim Reese and another by Dave Mullins at 2 p.m. on December 11. Follow the group on WSC Press on Facebook and Twitter.
The Celebration of Nebraska Books, which will begin on Monday, October 19, will include readings by some of the winning authors, designers and illustrators of books with a Nebraska connection published in 2019.
Contact the Nebraska Library Commission at 402-471-4002 or 800-307-2665.
Complete list of winners:
Children’s Picture Book: Your Bridge to History by Portia Love & Preston Love, Jr. Illustrated by Regina Jeanpierre. Publisher: Preston Publishing
Children’s Picture Book Honor: Major: A Soldier Dog by Trevor Jones. Illustrated by Ming Hai. Publisher: Six Foot Press
Cover/Design/Illustration: The Spirit of Nebraska: A History of Husker Game Day Traditions – the Tunnel Walk, Mascots, Cheer, and More by Debra Kleve White. Design by Concierge Marketing and Publishing Services. Publisher: Cheerful Books
Fiction: See Willy See by Faith Colburn. Publisher: Prairie Wind Press
Fiction Honor Series: The Line Between: A Thriller and A Single Light: A Thriller by Tosca Lee. Publisher: Howard Books
Nonfiction Investigative Journalism: Zoo Nebraska: Dismantling of an American Dream by Carson Vaughan. Publisher: Little A
Nonfiction Nature Reference: Great Plains Birds: Discover the Great Plains by Larkin Powell. Publisher: Bison Books
Nonfiction Immigration Story: Citizen Akoy: Basketball and the Making of a South Sudanese American by Steve Marantz. Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Nonfiction Nebraska Perseverance: Nebraska During the New Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project in the Cornhusker State by Marilyn Irvin Holt. Publisher: Bison Books
Nonfiction Native American History: Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power by Pekka Hämäläinen. Publisher: Yale University Press
Poetry: This Bright Darkness by Sarah McKinstry-Brown. Publisher: Black Lawrence Press
Poetry Honor: In a Good Time by Mark Sanders. Publisher: WSC Press