Michigan Author Award

The Center for the Book, and the Michigan Library Association present the Michigan Author Award annually to recognize a Michigan author for their literary merit. The award is based on an outstanding published body of work, which can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry or play scripts. The Thunder Bay Literary Conference began the award in 1992 and it has since become an important part of the Michigan literary landscape.

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the 21st winner of the Michigan Author Award in 2012.

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of numerous works including, Once Upon A River, American Salvage, O Road, Our Working Lives: Short Stories of People and Work and Women and Other Animals. These titles have been steadily gathering national attention (in the past year she has been a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award) and are uniformly rooted in the region the author calls home.

Bonnie currently lives in Comstock, MI. Reviewers routinely take note of her talent for capturing her unique region of Michigan in prose. This talent, and her creative dedication to the state she calls home, has made her ideally suited for the Michigan Author Award.

Previous Michigan Author Award Winners

1992 Dan Gerber

1993 Charles Baxter

1994 Nancy Willard

1995 Janet Kauffman

1996 Elmore Leonard

1997 Loren Estleman

1998 Gloria Whelan

1999 Jerry Dennis

2000 Janie Lynn Panagopoulos

2001 Thomas Lynch

2002 Nicholas Delbanco

2003 Diane Wakoski

2004 Patricia Polacco

2005 Christopher Paul Curtis

2006 Steve Hamilton

2007 Sarah Stewart

2008 Tom Stanton

2009 Dave Dempsey

2010 John Smolens

2011 Gary Schmidt

You can nominate an author for a future award. Nomination forms are available at the Michigan Library Association Author Award Committee web site.

Updated 01/04/2013