Submissions now being accepted for Gaines Award

Entries are now being accepted for the 13th annual Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. The deadline is Aug. 15. Information on criteria and entry forms for the award, which includes a $10,000 cash prize, is available at www.ernestjgainesaward.org.

Sponsored by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, the Gaines Award was created to honor outstanding literary work from rising African-American authors while recognizing Louisiana native Ernest Gaines’s extraordinary contribution to the literary world. The upcoming Gaines Award will honor outstanding fiction – novels or short-story collections – published in 2019. Galleys for 2018 publications are also accepted.

A native of Pointe Coupee Parish, Mr. Gaines’ critically acclaimed novel, “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” was adapted into a 1974 made-for-TV movie that received nine Emmy awards. His 1993 book, “A Lesson Before Dying,” won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. He is Writer-in-Residence Emeritus at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

The Gaines Award winner is chosen annually by a panel of professional writers and academics.

The award has found promising writers early in their careers. For instance, two previous Gaines Award winners have later won the $50,000 Whiting Award. Another was chosen a MacArthur Fellow, a $625,000 award given over five years.

Previous winners, starting with the latest, are Jamel Brinkley, Ladee Hubbard, Crystal Wilkinson, T. Geronimo Johnson, Mitchell Jackson, Attica Locke, Stephanie Powell Watts, Dinaw Mengestu, Victor Lavalle, Jeffery R. Allen, Ravi Howard and Olympia Vernon.

The Ernest Gaines Award event will be held Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020 at the Manship Theatre in downtown Baton Rouge.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.