LSU Press nabs several prestigious awards

            This winter, LSU Press and its authors have received national recognition for excellent in academic publishing. Three 2015 LSU Press books were honored as Outstanding Academic Titles by the American Library Association’s academic review magazine CHOICE. Comprising less than 3 percent of the thousands of titles sent to CHOICE in the year, these books represent the best scholarship, presentation, and treatment of their subjects.

             The titles chosen were Philip Howard’s “Black Labor, White Sugar,” which considers race and immigration in the Cuban sugar industry; Jenny Ellerbe and Diana Greenlee’s “Poverty Point,” a photographic and scholarly exploration of the mysterious ancient city in northeastern Louisiana; and John Bush Jones’s “Reinventing Dixie,” which explores the way the songs of Tin Pan Alley helped to create the moonlight-and-magnolia mythos of the American South.
            Every year the Prose Awards recognize the best in professional and scholarly publishing. Submissions are judged by peer publishers, librarians and professionals in various fields of study. LSU Press received an honorable mention in the category of Law and Legal Studies for Thomas Aiello’s “Jim Crow’s Last Stand,” and in the U.S. History category for Jeff Forret’s “Slave against Slave.”

            The Prose Awards select books from large trade houses and small university presses alike, and only titles that demonstrate a “commitment to pioneering works of research and for contributing to the conception, production, and design of landmark works in their fields” are recognized.

Cheré Dastugue Coen is the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana” and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” She also writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.