News of the Appalachian Literary Arts

News of the Appalachian Literary Arts For updates and expanded listings, please see our web site at www.berea. edulappalachianheritagellitartsnewsldefault.html The 2006 Weatherford Awards, sponsored by the Appalachian Studies Association and Berea College, for the outstanding regional,books of the year were presented to Sharon Hatfield for her book Never Seen the Moon: The Trials ofEdith Maxwell (non-fiction) and to Darnell Arnoult for What Travels With Us: Poems (fiction). Jack Spadaro was one of eight Americans to win a 2006 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award from The Playboy Foundation for his contribution to protecting and enhancing the first amendment. The $5,000.00 prize and a crystal plaque was presented at a luncheon at New York's Cipriani 23r" Street. The citation read, "To Jack Spadaro, The Director of the National Mine Safety and Health Academy who put his life on the line when he blew the whistle on irresponsible mining practices, corporate collusion, and government cover-up in the wake of an environmental mining disaster." James Baker Hall of rural Sadieville, Kentucky, will serve as one of two visiting poets at Summer Poetry in Idyllwild, CA, July 16-22, 2006. Scott Loring Sanders' short story Hoot Owl Holler, published in the Summer 2005 issue of Appalachian Heritage, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Morehead State University has announced that the winner of the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award for Excellence in Appalachian Writing is Sharon Hatfield, author of Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell. The award comes with a $1,000 honorarium and will be presented at the Kentucky Folk Art Center in Morehead, KY, at 1:00 p.m., July 12 . As in former years, the Chaffin Ceremony will be followed by a book signing by more than a dozen Kentucky and regional authors at Coffeetree Books, two blocks from the Folk Art Center. ...