Eric Hoffer Likes Us!

Note from NDSU Press Publisher Suzzanne Kelley

We are pleased as punch to announce we have just been notified that Surrender Dorothy, by Brett Salsbury, has won 1st Runner-Up in the Eric Hoffer Award for Poetry in the Chapbook category!

 

Brett Salsbury, winner of the 2022 NDSU Press Poetry of the Plains & Prairies Award for his chapbook collection, Surrender Dorothy,”and 1st Runner-Up in the Eric Hoffer Award for Poetry in the category of Chapbook. Brett is a writer of poetry and prose who has split most of his life between Kansas and Nevada. His work has also appeared in Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, The New Territory, and Concrete Desert Review, among others. He was the 2022 recipient of the Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award in Prose.

Brett was our 2022 prizewinner of the Poetry of the Plains & Prairies Award, resulting in our standard publication contract, ten comp copies, author discount, and the hand-letterpress publication of Surrender Dorothy. This collection of poetry is the seventh in our series of chapbook publications, produced by the students in the Introduction to Publishing class, which meets every fall. The class is part of our Certificate in Publishing, which is offered to undergraduates, graduate students, and Project 65 students.

Introduction to Publishing students learn the art of letterpress printing. Here, at The Hunter Times Museum located at Bonanzaville, West Fargo, students feed paper through the antique Chandler & Price printer, examining each cover with close scrutiny. Not in the picture is Allan Burke, pressman extraordinaire, who provides history, guidance, and mentoring to our chapbook-printing projects. Left to right: Saraa, Ella, Levi, and Monika.

Individual cover samples and a bucket of ink.

We print the covers at The Hunter Times, and then we travel far west to Braddock, ND, to print the interior pages and assemble some 300+ copies at The Braddock News Letterpress Museum.

Past winners of the POPP Award are:

  • 2021 Prairie Madness, by Katherine Hoerth (Nebraska)
  • 2020 A Muddy Kind of Love, by Carolyn A. Dahl (Texas)
  • 2019 Harvest Widows, by Nick Bertelson (Iowa)
  • 2018 Destiny Manifested, by Bonnie Larson Staiger (North Dakota)
  • 2017 Thunderbird (out of print), by Denise Lajimodiere (North Dakota)
  • 2016 Land of Sunlit Ice (out of print), by Larry Woiwode (North Dakota

But Brett’s chapbook prize isn’t the only award we’ve garnered from the Eric Hoffer Awards. In 2022, our 2021 POPP Award Winner, Prairie Madness, by Katherine Hoerth, won Honorable Mention, and in 2019, Thunderbird (now out of print), by Denise K. Lajimodiere, also received Honorable Mention in the Chapbook category.

In other categories, Mammals of North Dakota, 2nd Edition, by Robert Seabloom, was the 1st Runner-Up in the Reference category, and David Mills’s Operation Snowbound: Life behind the Blizzards of 1949, won the Gold Medal in the category of Culture.

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“The Eric Hoffer Book Award honors the memory of the great American philosopher Eric Hoffer by highlighting salient writing, as well as the independent spirit of small press publishers. Since its inception, the Hoffer has become one of the largest international book awards for small, academic, and independent presses.”

Apple in the Middle Wins National Recognition

Our first publication in the NDSU Press Contemporary Voices of Indigenous Peoples series, Apple in the Middle, by author Dawn Quigley, has won national recognition from the American Indian Library Association (AILA), an affiliate of the American Library Association (ALA).

The inaugural AILA award, which will be announced in even years, identifies and honors the best writing and illustrations by and about American Indians. This new award joins other long-standing awards–such as the John Newberry Medal and the Randolph Caldecott Medal–under the umbrella of the ALA.

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Dawn Quigley, author of award-winning Apple in the Middle (NDSU Press 2018) / Photo by Brook Wood, http://www.tadpolephoto.com

Dawn Quigley, with her debut novel, is in fine company with three other authors–all four recognized as the first-ever American Indian Youth Literature Young Adult Book Honor winners:

  • Surviving the City, written by Tasha Spillett (Nehiyaw-Trinidadian), illustrated by Natasha Donovan (Métis Nation of British Columbia) (Highwater Press);
  • Reawakening Our Ancestors’ Lines: Revitalizing Inuit Traditional Tattooing, gathered and compiled by Angela Hovak Johnston (Inuk), with photography by Cora De Vos (Inuk) (Inhabit);
  • An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People, written by Debbie Reese (Nambé Owingeh) and Jean Mendoza, adapted from the adult book by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Beacon Press);
  • and Apple in the Middle, written by Dawn Quigley (Ojibwe, Turtle Mountain Band) (North Dakota State University Press)

The first place winner of the American Indian Youth Literature Award in the Young Adult category is Hearts Unbroken, written by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee) (Candlewick Press).

Dawn Quigley writes, “So honored that NDSU Press and Suzzanne Kelley said ‘Yes’ to my book, Apple in the Middle!! Miigwech to everyone at the press who worked on this…And the amazing cover art by Jamie Hohnadel Trosen!”

Within minutes of the announcement, our NDSU Press office began receiving phone calls with congratulations and book orders. We are SO PLEASED for Dawn and for this incredible attention to the North Dakota State University Press.

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Apple in the Middle, by Dawn Quigley / Cover illustration and design by Jamie Hohnadel Trosen / Interior design by Deb Tanner

Regional and national articles featuring an announcement about our newest NDSU Press award:

Publishers Weekly

Twin Cities Pioneer Press

Minneapolis Star Tribune

IPPY Book Awards 2019

From Zachary Vietz, Publicist at NDSU Press

NDSU Press is happy to announce FOUR of our authors’ works have been selected as winning medalists in the 2019 IPPY Book Awards! We are extremely happy and proud of our authors, and we hope these medals will shine proudly among their accolades.

Below are our award winners and their respective titles:

  • Apple in the Middle, by Dawn Quigley
    • Gold Medal – Multicultural Fiction – Juvenile/Young Adult
  • Pacing Dakota, by Tom Isern
    • Gold Medal – Midwest – Best Regional Non-Fiction
  • Songs of Horses and Lovers, by Madelyne Camrud
    • Gold Medal – Poetry – Specialty (Illustrated/Anthology)
  • Operation Snowbound: Life behind the Blizzards of 1949, by David W. Mills
    • Silver Medal – Midwest – Best Regional Non-Fiction

Independent publishers from around the world participated in the 23rd annual, 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards (the IPPYs). There are winners from five Australian provinces, seven Canadian provinces, forty-two states and the District of Columbia and Guam, plus France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, and more. We notice too that in addition to NDSU Press, there are fifteen US university presses with winning publications (but we are the ONLY one to claim four medals). We were up against some stiff competition!

You can find a full list of winners here.

Thank you to everyone who supports NDSU Press and its authors.

 

National, Regional, and State Awards

note from Suzzanne Kelley, Publisher, NDSU Press
Our publishing year has been phenomenal, with record-breaking sales and national, regional, and even state book awards that have us all marveling at our good fortune. Check out this list just for 2018:
  • Gold Medal for Young Adult Fiction–General, Moonbeam Children’s Book Award: Apple in the Middle, by Dawn Quigley
  • First Place, North Dakota Library Association Notable Document Award: The Prairie Post Office: Enlarging the Common Life in Rural North Dakota, by K. Amy Phillips and Steven R. Bolduc, with history by Kevin Carvell and photographs by Wayne Gudmundson.
  • Third Place, North Dakota Library Association Notable Document Award: The Bakken: An Archaeology of an Industrial Landscape, by William Caraher and Bret Weber
  • Gold Medalist, IPPY Awards, Cover Design: Derby Girl: A Memoir, by Sammi Jones; cover design by Jamie Hohnadel Trosen
  • Bronze Medalist for Midwest–Best Regional Nonfiction, IPPY Awards: The Prairie Post Office: Enlarging the Common Life in Rural North Dakota, by K. Amy Phillips and Steven R. Bolduc, with history by Kevin Carvell and photographs by Wayne Gudmundson.
  • Bronze Medalist for Science, IPPY Awards: North Dakota’s Geologic Legacy, by John P. Bluemle
  • Finalist, Autobiography/Memoir, Foreword INDIES Award: Derby Girl: A Memoir, by Sammi Jones
  • Finalist (of three), LGBT Nonfiction, Foreword INDIES Award: Derby Girl: A Memoir, by Sammi Jones
  • Finalist (of three), Arts/Photography/Coffee Table Books, Midwest Book Awards: Music at NDSU, by Robert Groves
  • Finalist (of three), Fiction–Literary/Contemporary/Historical, Midwest Book Awards: This Could Have Been a Simple Story, by Ajla Terzic, Translated from the Bosnian by John K. Cox
  • Finalist (of three), Social Science/Political/Culture, Midwest Book Awards: Prairie Mosaic: An Ethnic Atlas of Rural North Dakota, 2nd Edition, by William C. Sherman, new Introduction by Thomas D. Isern
  • Finalist (of three), Social Science/Political/Culture, Midwest Book Awards:The Prairie Post Office: Enlarging the Common Life in Rural North Dakota, by K. Amy Phillips and Steven R. Bolduc, with history by Kevin Carvell and photographs by Wayne Gudmundson.
  • Total Book Design (of three), Midwest Book Awards: The Prairie Post Office: Enlarging the Common Life in Rural North Dakota, by K. Amy Phillips and Steven R. Bolduc, with history by Kevin Carvell and photographs by Wayne Gudmundson; cover and interior design by Deb Tanner
Sydney Olstad and Suzzanne at IPPYS

Sydney Olstad (at left)–a graduate of NDSU and one of the publishing students (now working as a copywriter in New York!) who worked on the book team for Derby Girl: A Memoir and NDSU Press Editor in Chief Dr. Suzzanne Kelley, bringing home the Gold and Bronze from the Independent Publisher  Book Awards Gala (IPPY), May 28, 2018, at The Copacabana, NYC.  Joining in the fun were cover designer Jamie Hohnadel Trosen, author Sammi Jones, and Hayley Burdett, contract manager and former publishing student now working in New Jersey with literary agents and “the Big Five” publishing houses. Photo by Jamie Hohnadel Trosen.

 

 

Fourteen Finalists & Award Winners

One of these days, we’ll have blog posts about something else, but these last few months have been bursting with good news in recognition. We are just three years out in our revamped & revised publishing program, and somehow–not by accident, but by seeking and publishing phenomenal manuscripts–we have raked in fourteen notes of merit this year. Our list of publications for 2016 and 2017 is being recognized this spring for the following international, national, and regional awards, the first four–from Independent Press Award–were just announced today. Don’t try to hold your breath while reading them, because the list is too long. We are a little breathless ourselves.

2018 Independent Press Award

  • Winner, Literary Fiction: This Could Have Been a Simple Story, by Ajla Terzic; translated from the Bosnian by John K. Cox
  • Winner, LGBTQ Non-fiction: Derby Girl: A Memoir, by Sammi Jones
  • Distinguished Favorite, LGBTQ Fiction: This Could Have Been a Simple Story, by Ajla Terzic, translated from the Bosnian by John K. Cox
  • Distinguished Favorite, Women’s Issues: Derby Girl: A Memoir, by Sammi Jones

2018 IPPY Awards

  • Gold, Cover Design: Derby Girl: A Memoir, by Sammi Jones; Cover design by Jamie Hohnadel Trosen
  • Bronze, Midwest–Best Regional Non-fiction: The Prairie Post Office: Enlarging the Common Life in Rural North Dakota, by K. Amy Phillips and Steven R. Bolduc, with history by Kevin Carvell and photographs by Wayne Gudmundson
  • Bronze, Science: North Dakota’s Geologic Legacy, by John P. Bluemle

2018 Foreword INDIES Awards (winners to be announced in June)

  • Finalist, Autobiography/Memoir: Derby Girl: A Memoir, by Sammi Jones
  • Finalist, LGBT Non-fiction: Derby Girl: A Memoir, by Sammi Jones

2018 Midwest Book Awards (winners to be announced in May)

  • Finalist, Arts/Photography/Coffee Table Books: Music at NDSU, by Robert Groves
  • Finalist, Fiction–Literary/Contemporary/Historical: This Could Have Been a Simple Story, by Ajla Terzic; translated from the Bosnian by John K. Cox
  • Finalist, Social Science/Political/Culture: Prairie Mosaic: An Ethnic Atlas of Rural North Dakota, 2nd Edition, by William C. Sherman; new introduction by Thomas D. Isern
  • Finalist, Social Science/Political/Culture: The Prairie Post Office: Enlarging the Common Life in Rural North Dakota, by K. Amy Phillips and Steven Bolduc, with history by Kevin Carvell and photographs by Wayne Gudmundson
  • Finalist, Total Book Design: The Prairie Post Office: Enlarging the Common Life in Rural North Dakota, by K. Amy Phillips and Steven Bolduc, with history by Kevin Carvell and photographs by Wayne Gudmundson; designed by Deb Tanner

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF OUR AUTHORS, DESIGNERS, IN-HOUSE STAFF & INTERNS, AND OUR EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD. WE’RE SHOWING HOW NDSU PRESS GIVES VOICE TO REGION!