Sharon Solwitz
Please join me in congratulating Sharon Solwitz, professor of English, for recently winning two distinguished writing awards.
Sharon’s manuscript Abra Cadabra, a novel in stories centered on a family coping with a son’s illness, won the Christopher Doheny Award from the Center for Fiction. The Doheny Award “recognizes excellence in fiction or nonfiction on the topic of serious physical illness by a writer who has personally dealt or is dealing with life-threatening illness.” Sharon lost a teenage son to cancer in 2001.
The Doheny Award carries a $10,000 prize and production and promotion of an Audible book, with the option to pursue print publication.
In addition, Sharon’s novel Once, in Lourdes (Spiegel & Grau) was recognized by the Society of Midland Authors as the best adult fiction book of 2017 written by a Midwest author or about the Midwest.
A panel of literary judges chooses a winner in each of six categories in the Society of Midland Authors annual awards, plus one or more honorees in each category whose work was worthy of recognition. The panel selected Sharon’s book as the winner in the adult fiction category and named three other books as honorees.
Sharon won the Society of Midland Authors annual award for adult fiction in 1998 for a collection of short stories titled Blood and Milk (Sarabande). Blood and Milk also won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award from Friends of the Chicago Public Library and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.
The Society of Midland Authors will present the awards in Chicago on May 8.
Congratulations, Professor Solwitz!
David A. Reingold
Justin S. Morrill Dean
College of Liberal Arts