The Indiana Authors Awards, also known as the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards, is a literary awards program that recognizes and honors authors from Indiana and literary works about Indiana. In 2020, awards were given in eight categories, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children's literature, young adult literature, drama, genre and emerging. The awards program runs biennially, with books published in 2020 and 2021 honored in 2022. Winners receive a cash prize, an Indiana limestone award trophy, and the opportunity to select an Indiana library to receive a donation. The 2024 winners include the following categories: nonfiction, fiction, debut, genre, poetry, young adult, middle grade, children's, and drama.
History The awards program was founded in 2009 by philanthropists Eugene and Marilyn Glick, partnering with The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation to create a program which recognized authors annually. Honors were awarded to authors in the three main categories of national, regional, and emerging, with some years including recognition for lifetime achievement and general excellence.
In 2018, Glick Philanthropies announced a desire to expand the awards program. After a year hiatus, in 2019 Glick Philanthropies partnered with Indiana Humanities to offer an expanded program, awarding honors to books every other year and a new Literary Champion Award. The 2020 awards included books in eight categories and recognized the Indiana Writers Center as Literary Champion. In the spring of 2022, the Indiana Authors Awards Tour brought recent award-winning authors to Indiana communities. The most recent awards cycle occurred in August 2024.
Winners of awards for lifetime bodies of work Following is a subset of the awards granted, focusing just on top honors that are for authors' complete lifetime works. These primarily are just the National Winners, the Regional Winners, and the Lifetime Achievement Awards which were all granted on basis of persons' entire body of works. It omits two National Finalist and four Regional Finalist awards given in 2009–10, the first years of the program, and not offered in any later year.Three of those six persons: Margaret McMullan, Scott Russell Sanders and James H. Madison later won National Winner, Regional Winner, or Lifetime Achievement awards and are included in the table presented. It includes two "Excellence" awards given, and it omits "Emerging Winner" and "Emerging Finalist" awards. In 2019, no awards were granted, and the focus of the program shifted to make awards for recent books in various categories (therefore not for entire bodies of work). No awards were given in 2021. In 2020 and 2022, there appears to be only one "Lifetime Achievement" award granted, included below.
The remaining awards through 2024 make up a set of authors comparable to other writers' halls of fame. These awards, for entire bodies of authors' complete work, are:
Year Award Author 2009 National Winner James Alexander Thom Regional Winner Susan Neville 2010 National Winner Scott Russell Sanders Regional Winner Ray Boomhower 2011 National Winner Margaret McMullan Regional Winner Helen Frost 2012 Lifetime Achievement Dan Wakefield National Winner John Green Regional Winner Barbara Shoup 2013 National Winner Michael Martone Regional Winner James H. Madison 2014 National Winner Michael Shelden Regional Winner Norbert Krapf 2015 Lifetime Achievement Mari Evans National Winner Marianne Boruch Regional Winner Adrian Matejka 2016 National Winner Karen Joy Fowler Regional Winner Philip Gulley Genre Excellence Winner (children's picture books) April Pulley Sayre 2017 National Winner Kekla Magoon Regional Winner Lori Rader-Day Genre Excellence Winner (middle-grade fiction) John David Anderson 2018 National Winner Kimberly Brubaker Bradley Regional Winner Sandy Eisenberg Sasso Lifetime Achievement James Alexander Thom 2020 Literary Champion Indiana Writers Center 2022 Literary Champion JL Kato Lifetime Achievement James H. Madison 2024 Literary Champion Tony BrewerLifetime AchievementSusan Neville 2026 Literary Champion Women Writing for (a) Change BloomingtonLifetime Achievement Marianne Boruch
Category Winners +YearAwardAuthorBook2020NonfictionRoss GayThe Book of DelightsFictionChris WhiteThe Life List of Adrian MandrickEmergingMelissa StephensonDriven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and BackGenreMaurice BroaddusPimp My AirshipPoetryEugene GloriaSightseer in this Killing CityYoung AdultSaundra MitchellAll the Things We Do in the DarkChildren'sPhillip HooseAttucks!: Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team That Awakened a CityDramaJames StillThe Jack Plays2022NonfictionCraig FehrmanAuthor in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They WroteFictionSusan NevilleThe Town of Whispering DollsDebutAshley C. FordSomebody's Daughter: A MemoirGenrePaul AllorHollow HeartPoetryRoss GayBe HoldingYoung AdultLeah JohnsonYou Should See Me in a CrownMiddle GradeHelen FrostAll He KnewChildren'sKim HowardGrace and Box2024NonfictionEdward FujawaVanished IndianapolisFictionTess GuntyThe Rabbit HutchDebutBrittany MeansHell If We Don’t Change Our WaysGenreRebecca McKannaDon’t Forget the GirlPoetryGeorge KalamarasTo Sleep in the Horse’s Belly: My Greek Poets and the Aegean Inside MeYoung AdultKekla MagoonThe Minus-One ClubMiddle GradeMaurice BroaddusUnfadeableChildren'sJanna MatthiesHere We Come!DramaJennifer BlackmerPredictor
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