Library of Virginia and VMFA Announce Winner of Annual Art in Literature Award

The Library of Virginia and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts are pleased to announce the winner of the annual Art in Literature: The Mary Lynn Kotz Award. This award recognizes an outstanding book in fiction or nonfiction that demonstrates the highest literary merit as a creative or scholarly work on the theme of visual artists or art. Categories include works of journalism, poetry, fiction, biography, and history, as well as museum exhibition catalogs.

This year’s finalists for the Art in Literature Award are: French Riviera and Its Artists: Art, Literature, Love, and Life on the Côte D’Azur by John Baxter, María Izquierdo and Frida Kahlo: Challenging Visions in Modern Mexican Art by Nancy Defebach, Portraits at an Exhibition by Patrick Horrigan, Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann, and The Master of the Prado by Javier Sierra.

The judges selected Portraits at an Exhibition by Patrick Horrigan as this year's winner. The winner will be recognized on Friday, October 14, 2016, at VMFA and on Saturday, October 15, 2016, at the Library of Virginia's annual Virginia Literary Awards Gala.

About the Author

Born and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania, Patrick E. Horrigan received his BA from The Catholic University of America and his PhD from Columbia University. He is the author of the novel Portraits at an Exhibition (Lethe Press), about a young man’s search for the meaning of life amid a gallery of old masters portraits, and Widescreen Dreams: Growing Up Gay at the Movies (University of Wisconsin Press), an analysis of several popular films from the 1960s and '70s. He has written artists' catalog essays for Thion’s Limi-Tate: Drawings of Life and Dreams (cueB Gallery, London) and Ernesto Pujol’s Loss of Faith (Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York). His essay “The Inner Life of Ordinary People” appears in Anthony Enns and Christopher R. Smit’s Screening Disability: Essays on Cinema and Disability (University Press of America). His one-act play, Messages for Gary: A Drama in Voicemail, composed entirely of answering machine messages received by the activist and socialist scholar Gary Lucek, was a critically acclaimed hit at the Third Annual New York International Fringe Festival. With his husband, the actor and writer Eduardo Leanez, he co-wrote the solo show You Are Confused! about the relationship between a gay Venezuelan boy and his charismatic mother. He and Leanez are the hosts of Actors with Accents, a recurring variety show in Manhattan’s East Village. Winner of the 2015 David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching, he is an associate professor of English at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University. He lives in Manhattan.

About the Award

Art in Literature: The Mary Lynn Kotz Award recognizes an outstanding book published in the previous year that is written primarily in response to a work (or works) of art while also showing the highest literary quality as a creative or scholarly work. This unique award, established in 2013, is named in honor of Mary Lynn Kotz, author of the award-winning biography Rauschenberg: A Life. The inaugural award recipient was The Innocence of Objects by Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk. The 2014 award winner was Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda for The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Last year's winner was Susan Vreeland for her novel Lisette's List.

The Art in Literature Award is presented each year during the annual Virginia Literary Awards Celebration weekend, which will take place in Richmond, Virginia, on October 14 and 15, 2016. The events begin on Friday evening, October 14, with a program celebrating the Art in Literature Award–winning author. The Friday program is held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, with a talk given by the author about the writing of the book, and is followed by a book signing and reception.

The award itself will be presented on Saturday evening, October 15, at a gala reception and dinner held at the Library of Virginia. During the dinner program, in addition to honoring the Art in Literature winner, the Library will also present awards to the best work by a Virginia author in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry as well as a Literary Lifetime Achievement honoree. Nikki Giovanni will receive this year's Literary Lifetime Achievement Award, but the winners of the fiction, nonfiction, and poetry awards are kept secret until the awards evening on October 15. The well-known and delightful author Adriana Trigiani returns again this year as mistress of ceremonies for the evening.

Programs

Friday, October 14, 2016
Art in Literature: An Undying Love Affair
VMFA, Pauley Center Parlor, 6–7:30 p.m.
This event will feature a presentation by the award recipient, Patrick Horrigan, followed by a book signing and reception in the Marble Hall.

Visit www.vmfa.museum to purchase tickets for this event

Saturday, October 15, 2016
The Library of Virginia Literary Awards Celebration
Library of Virginia, 6–10:00 p.m.
The Library of Virginia Literary Awards are given to outstanding Virginia authors in the areas of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Visit www.literaryva.com to purchase tickets for this event.

Sign Up For a Library of Virginia Card

Don't live in Richmond? But you still want remote access to the wonderful subscription databases the Library has to offer? Or you have a card, but it's expired? You're in luck. The answer to your questions is as close as the nearest computer. The Library of Virginia offers remote registration and renewals to all Virginia Residents with a valid DMV-issued license or identification card. Just visit our website and complete the online application form or online renewal form and in a few short steps, you'll be done. You may register or renew at any time, day or night, and access is immediate. The registration or renewal is good for one year and at the end of the year, you will just need to complete the online renewal for an additional year of access. On your next visit to the Library, we will issue you a card if this is your first time registering, verify your information, and add your picture to the record to complete our end of the process. Please contact Tina Miller if you have questions: 804-692-3539 or tina.miller@lva.virginia.gov.

Library to Host Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Research Fellows

The Library of Virginia will host four research Fellows sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities during the 2016–2017 academic year. In the autumn of 2016, Catherine A. Jones (University of California, Santa Cruz) will conduct research on "Child Prisoners and the Limits of Citizenship in the New South." Joining her during the fall semester will be Gregory Wilson (University of Akron), who will research and write on "Toxic Dust: The Virginia Kepone Disaster and the Legacy of Chlorinated Insecticides." In the spring of 2017 the Library will host Douglas Winiarski (University of Richmond), whose topic is "Shakers, Jerkers, and the Shawnee Prophet: Religious Encounters on the Early American Frontier, 1805–1815," and independent author Thomas Kapsidelis, who will research "Higher Aim: Guns, Safety, and Healing in the Era of Mass Shootings."

The new partnership between the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities provides an exciting opportunity for these researchers to examine in-depth the vast manuscript resources of the Library during their stay as scholars in residence. The Fellows will present their findings and experiences with public talks at the Library near the end of each semester.

–submitted by John Deal, Public Services and Outreach

Great Volunteer Opportunity in the Virginia Shop

Do you know of anyone excited about giving back to a great institution? Tell them about the Virginia Shop.

With locations in both the Library of Virginia and the State Capitol Building, the Virginia Shop is looking for a few good volunteer assistants one or two times a month. We feature the work of Virginia authors, artists, and artisans and focus on products made in, and inspired by, the commonwealth. Our profits from the shop help fund Library of Virginia programs.

Duties include running the cash register and assisting with merchandise management.

For more information, call the shop at 804-692-3524 or e-mail shop@thevirginiashop.org.

Library Helps Public Libraries Scan Yearbooks

Trying to remember the name of the quiet girl—who was also pretty and sweet—who sat behind you for four years in homeroom back in the day? The Library of Virginia is here to help.

In 2012 the Library of Virginia began working with 11 public libraries to loan scanners and computers to scan unique materials found in their collections. This pilot project was funded with a federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant. Although much of what was scanned was school yearbooks, the libraries didn’t have a good way to make them available to the public.

The Library of Virginia recommended making Virginia yearbooks available through the Digitization Collaborative of Lyrasis, a nonprofit membership organization that works with libraries, archives, and museums. The Library is a partner in the collaborative, which provides professional and cost-effective digitization, as well as public access to materials through the Internet Archive. We have already digitized items in our rare book collection and helped the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries digitize their monthly magazine, Virginia Wildlife, so we knew it was an efficient, effective way to create digital collections.

The first yearbooks to be digitized and made available online are from the Pulaski County Public Library (https://archive.org/details/pulaskicountypl). Among those now being scanned are the Trucker yearbooks from Churchland High School in Portsmouth.

Of special note is a significant yearbook collection located at the Orange County African American Historical Society. The Hawk was the yearbook of George Washington Carver Regional High School for African American students in Rapidan. The school opened in 1948, offering education beyond the seventh grade to African American students whose opportunities were severely limited by segregation. By the time the school closed in 1968, approximately 2,500 students had been educated there. The 17 yearbooks scanned from Carver Regional High School can be viewed here: https://archive.org/details/culpepercountylibrary.

Twenty-one additional libraries are organizing their yearbook collections and prepping materials for digitization, all of which will be completed with federal LSTA funds. We expect even more libraries to get on board in the coming year. .

By the way, the girl from homeroom was Mary Sue Morrison.

–Submitted by Jan Hathcock, Churchland High School Alum

Tickets on Sale for 2016 Virginia Literary Awards Celebration—October 15

Join us for one of the best literary parties of the year! On October 15, the Library of Virginia's annual Literary Awards Celebration will feature Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Nikki Giovanni, one of the country’s preeminent African American poets. Giovanni will receive her award at the Literary Awards gala at the Library on the evening of October 15. Winners in the fiction, nonfiction, and poetry categories will be announced. Giovanni will also be the featured speaker earlier that day at the Literary Awards Luncheon held at the Greater Richmond Convention Center in partnership with the James River Writers Association.

For tickets or more information on sponsorship or advertising opportunities, call 804.692.3813, e-mail dawn.greggs@lva.virginia.gov, or go to www.lva.virginia.gov/public/litawards.

Governor McAuliffe Names Tim Seibles as Virginia's Poet Laureate

JTim Seibles is the new poet laureate of Virginia. The author of six collections of poetry, Seibles teaches English and creative writing at Old Dominion University, the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing, and the Cave Canem Foundation.

Seibles's collections of poetry include Body Moves, Hurdy–Gurdy, Hammerlock (a finalist for the Library of Virginia's literary award for poetry in 2000), Buffalo Head Solos, and Fast Animal, which won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and was nominated for a 2012 National Book Award.

He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, an Open Voice Award from the National Writers Voice Project, and the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award.

The governor appoints the poet laureate from a list of nominees submitted by the Poetry Society of Virginia. Each poet laureate serves a term of two years with no restrictions on reappointment.

Mark Your Calendars for the 16th Anniversary National Book Festival

The National Book Festival will be held on Saturday, September 24, 2016, 10:00 AM–10:00 PM, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. All programs are free of charge. The festival features more than 100 distinguished authors across many fields and in all genres of writing, with audiences ranging from young readers to adults.

Among the authors scheduled to appear are Kwame Alexander, Philip Glass, Annette Gordon-Reed, Joyce Carol Oates, Salman Rushdie, Luis Alberto Urrea, Bob Woodward, Carl Hiaasen, Katherine Paterson, Shonda Rhimes, and Calvin Trillin.

The Library of Congress will honor Stephen King, who will open the festival's main stage, in a special presentation for his decades of work promoting literacy. Due to the anticipated crowd for King's appearance, tickets will be required. The tickets for King’s presentation are free and will be issued through the Library’s website starting on Wednesday, September 14. Please check the Library of Congress website at loc.gov/bookfest for more details and for a complete schedule of author presentations and activities. The festival's other events do not require tickets.

New Benefits for Fry-Jefferson Map Society

We were pleased to launch the first Fry-Jefferson Map Society e-newsletter for members in August. A copy of the e-newsletter is available in PDF format on the Fry-Jefferson Map Society webpage—Volume 1: August 2016. Take a look to find out more about the wonderful cartographic collections, workshops, and events at the Library of Virginia.

As a token of our thanks, new and renewing members will receive a beautiful magnet featuring an 1889 Arbuckle Bros. Coffee Company advertising card that includes a Virginia map and tobacco farm illustrations.

To join or renew your membership to the Fry-Jefferson Map Society, please visit becoming a member or contact Dawn Greggs at 804.692.3813 or e-mail dawngreggs@lva.virginia.gov.