On Sunday, writers, editors, publishers, and book lovers gathered at the Blue Mountain Center in Blue Mountain Lake to learn the winners of the Adirondack Center for Writing’s annual Adirondack Literary Awards.

The awards celebrate and acknowledge books written by Adirondack authors or published in the region in the previous year.  A record nine awards were given this year: 2 in the fiction category, 2 in the children’s literature category, and Best Memoir was shared between 2 books. Other honors went to Best Book of Poetry, Best General Nonfiction, and the popular People’s Choice Award.

The following winners were announced:

Best Children’s Book: The Woodsman’s Boy by April Peterson in the Young Adult/Middle Grade category and for Picture Book the honor went to Liana Mahoney’s Forest Green: A Walk Through the Adirondack Seasons published by North Country Books.

There were two fiction prizes, one for best for short story collections and one for best novel. The award for Best Short Story Collection went to The Striker by Luis L. Tijerina, published by RA Press and the prize for Best Novel went to Mary Sanders Shartle for The Truth and Legend of Lily Martindale: An Adirondack Novel.

Two books received the honor of Best Memoir: Lorraine Duvall’s And I know too Much to Pretend published by Bloated Toe Publishing and Adirondack: Life and Wildlife in the Wild, Wild East, published by SUNY Press, by Ed Kanze.

The Best Book of General Nonfiction went Stuart Bartow for Teaching Trout to Talk: The Zen of Small Stream Fly Fishing also published by RA Press. And for the second year in a row, the Best Book of Poetry went to Paul Pines, this time for Fishing on the Pole Star by Dos Madres Press.

The popular People’s Choice Award went to Mary Sanders Shartle for The Truth and Legend of Lily Martindale: An Adirondack Novel, giving Mary two awards that night.

The judges for the Adirondack Literary Award were:

Nonfiction and memoir: Bibi Wein and Jerry McGovern

Fiction: Linda Cohen and Joseph Bruchac

Poetry: Marilyn McCabe and Elizabeth Cohen

Children’s Literature: Ellen Wilcox and Nancy Beattie