In a press release, the N.C. Literary and Historical Association announced their 2022 North Carolina Book Award Recipients. Presented during the annual meeting of the association, the annual awards recognize significant works by North Carolina writers. Two North Carolina Writers’ Network members, Valerie Nieman and Joseph Bathanti, were recognized.
Nieman wins the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction presented by the Historical Book Club of North Carolina for In the Lonely Backwater (Fitzroy Books, 2022).
Valerie Nieman was a 2013-2014 North Carolina Arts Council poetry fellow and has received an NEA creative writing fellowship. Her awards include the Greg Grummer, Nazim Hikmet, and Byron Herbert Reece poetry prizes. Nieman graduated from West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte. A former professor and journalist, she now teaches creative writing at conferences and venues such as the John C. Campbell Folk School.
Bathanti wins the Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for Light at the Seam (LSU Press, 2022).
Joseph Bathanti is a former North Carolina Poet Laureate, and recipient of the 2016 North Carolina Award for Literature. He is the author of ten books of poetry. Bathanti is currently Professor of English and McFarlane Family Distinguished Professor of Interdisciplinary Education and Writer-in-Residence at Appalachian State University.
The 2022 North Carolina Book Award winners in remaining categories include:
Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction: Dr. Warren Milteer for Beyond Slavery’s Shadow: Free People of Color in the South (UNC Press, 2021).
Young People’s Literature Award presented by the American Association of University Women (AAUW): Micki Bare for Society of the Sentinelia (Level Best Books, 2022).
Hardee Rives Award for the Dramatic Arts for Significant Contribution to the Arts in North Carolina: NC Stage Company, Asheville. Founded by Charlie and Angie Flynn-McIver in 2001, NC Stage Company is a 127-seat, off-broadway style professional theatre, producing several plays per season in the heart of Asheville.
Christopher Crittenden Memorial Award for Significant Contributions to the History of North Carolina: Dr. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Julia Cherry Spruill Professor Emeritus at UNC-Chapel Hill.