LOCAL WRITERS HONORED
Saturday, June 5, 2010, the San Diego Book Awards Association is hosting their sixteenth annual San Diego Book & Writing Awards. Held at the AMN Healthcare Building in San Diego, California, the program features Laurel Corona keynote speaker and program host Bruno Leone.

Published Book Contest

This contest is open to San Diego County residents whose books were first published in 2009 and/or bear a 2009 copyright. Published book categories include fiction, nonfiction, young adult fiction, young adult nonfiction, children’s fiction, and children’s nonfiction.

Submissions for Published Books–Nonfiction being honored as finalists this year include:

Biography

Nancy Burnett, Journeys Home
Sarita Eastman, A Trail of Light: The Very Full Life of Dr. Anita Figueredo
Gayle Slate, Dana’s Legacy: From Heartbreak to Healing

Business

Ken Blanchard, Helping People Win at Work
Scott G. Kyle, The Power Curve
Bob Nelson, Keeping Up in a Down Economy
Lee Silber, Andrew Chapman, and Linda Krall, The Wild Idea Club

Children’s/Young Adult

Edward Hujsak, All About Rocket Engines
Judith Pinkerton Josephson, Nelson Mandela

Cooking and Crafts

Gaetano Cicciotti, Cicciotti’s Kitchen
Bernard Guillen, Flying Pans
Leslie Perlis, Dimensional Mosaics

Education

Beth Wagner Brust and Cynthia La Brie Norall, Quirky, Yes—Hopeless, No
Michael Linsin, Dream Class

General

Michael Hemmingson, Star Trek: A Post-Structural Critique of the Original Series
Peter J. Munson, Iraq in Transition
Michael Oldstone, Viruses, Plagues, & History: Past, Present, and Future

History

Tom Basinski, Cross Country Evil
David Klauber, The Sounding

Amy Goodpaster Strebe, Flying For Her Country

Local Interest

Leland Fetzer, The Cuyamacas
Karla Ogilvie, Encinitas Insight
Linda H. Pequegnat, This Day in San Diego History

Memoir

Ella DeCastro Baron, Itchy Brown Girl Seeks Employment
Lew Decker, Fingerprints…A Coffeehouse Reader

Phyllis Pilgrim, The Hidden Passport: My Childhood Journey Through Japanese Concentration Camps in Java

Carol Poe Straubinger, My Chunk of a Century

Lac Su, I Love Yous Are for White People

Pets

Richard Lederer, A Treasury for Cat Lovers
Richard Lederer, A Treasury for Dog Lovers

Liz Palika, Puppy Love

Cindy Traisi, Because They Matter, Too

Self-Help & Medicine

Marylin S. Beidler, Everyday Wellness
Kathi Burns, How to Master Your Muck

Giovanna Pang Garcia, Why Chinese Women Are Not Broke

Spirit/Inspiration

Pamela MacPhee, Delivering Hope
Dean Nelson, God Hides in Plain Sight
Sheryl L. Roush, Heart of a Military Woman

Travel

Diane Asitimbay, What’s Up America?
Nelson Copp, Cycling the Palm Springs Region

Bette Blaydes Pegas, Chasing a Dream in the Galápagos

The San Diego Book Awards Association is a volunteer organization dedicated to enriching the large, diverse, and vibrant literary community of the nation’s third largest county. Founded in 1994, the SDBAA honors the best published books and unpublished manuscripts by San Diego County residents each year. Winning authors report that receiving a San Diego Book Award boosts sales of their books, and several winners of their unpublished novel, memoir, and poetry chapbook competitions have said that receiving a San Diego Book Award played an instrumental role in their later securing a publisher for their work.

A 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, the SDBAA promotes literacy in San Diego County schools through the Read-4-Fun program. Specially designed for fifth graders—the grade in which reading for pleasure dramatically declines—Read-4-Fun gives away approximately 2,500 books a year to student readers. For many of these children, the books they receive through Read-4-Fun are the first books they have ever owned.