Florida Book Awards Program by Drs. Noll and Gallman

Summary of the April 8 program by Mallory M. O’Connor

The Florida Book Awards is an annual awards program that honors, recognizes, and celebrates literature by Florida authors and books about Florida that were published in the previous year. Established in 2006, the program now gives awards in eleven categories with bronze, silver and gold medals. According to Dr. Steven Noll, one of two presenters on April 8, it is the nation’s most comprehensive state book awards program.

The awards program is coordinated by the Florida State University Libraries and has a number of co-sponsors including the Florida Center for the Book, the State Library and Archives, the Florida Humanities Council, and the Florida Writers Association. Submissions are read by juries of three members for each of eleven categories: Younger Children’s Literature, Older Children’s Literature, Cooking, Florida Nonfiction, General Fiction, General Nonfiction, Popular Fiction, Spanish Language, Visual Arts, Young Adult, and Poetry.

The jurors are nominated by the co-sponsoring organizations from across the state. Jurors are authorized to select up to three medalists in each category (one gold, one silver, and one bronze). The jurors are also authorized to make no selections in any given year. Winning authors from across the state are honored at an annual awards banquet in Tallahassee. Previous winners include such well-known authors as Cynthia Barnett whose book Rain: A Natural and Cultural History was a 2015 gold medal winner.

Another 2015 winner was J. Matthew Gallman. His book, Defining Duty in the Civil War, was a silver-medal winner for nonfictiion. Dr. Gallman spoke about how his book progressed from intended satire to a more nuanced account of the concept of “duty” among Northerners during the Civil War period.

He pointed out the problems faced by men and women as they grappled with the unprecedented decision associated with taking sides in a divided nation. He also discussed the issues of gender and ethnicity as women and African-Americans struggled to understand their role in the conflict. Dr. Gallman used a number of visual images in the form of political cartoons to support and augment his discussion.

A juror in the non-fiction category, Steven Noll, PhD, University of Florida, is a master lecturer and author of three books including co-author of Ditch of Dreams, a history of the ill-fated cross-Florida barge canal project. Dr. Noll was named one of the 300 best professors in the US by the Princeton Review in 2012. His writing interests include many topics of Florida history including sports history and the environment.

J. Matthew Gallman earned his PhD in American History from Brandeis University and taught at Loyola College, Gettysburg College, and Occidental College before joining the Department of History at the University of Florida in 2003, where he teaches, reads, and writes about the American Civil War.