Books written by five Northwest Indiana authors are on a shortlist eligible for top honors in the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards. The books span eight literary categories, the organization said in an Aug. 3 announcement.
Forty-six books written by Indiana authors and published in 2024 and 2025 have been shortlisted. Winners will be announced by Aug. 19.
The local authors include:
Carolyn R. Boiarsky, Hammond, for “Lead Babies and Poisoned Housing: Environmental Injustice, Systemic Racism, and Governmental Failure,” the story of how governmental neglect and environmental injustice led to the displacement of more than 1,000 minority residents in East Chicago.
Acamea Deadwiler, Hobart, for “Daddy’s Little Stranger,” a memoir that delves into the neglect and rejection Deadwiler experienced at the hands of her multiple father figures, and the resolve to build something sustainable from a fractured childhood.
Shifa Saltagi Safadi (two), Valparaiso, on the middle grade shortlist for “Kareem Between,” a novel-in-verse about a Syrian American boy figuring out who he is while striving to join his middle school’s football team, and “Amina Banana and the Formula for Friendship,” which follows a third grader who has just moved to Indiana from Syria and is nervous about making friends in a new American school.
Michelle McGill-Vargas, Merrillville, for “American Ghoul,” which follows a recently freed slave and a vampire as they begin a new life together in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Rosanne Tolin, Chesterton, for “Freedom’s Game,” the story of two Jewish girls in an orphanage who must decide if they can trust their new coach to lead them to safety in nearby Switzerland during the Nazi-allied Vichy regime in France.
Established in 2009, the awards represent a vision of philanthropists Eugene and Marilyn Glick and are a component of Indiana Humanities’ rich and diverse literary programming. It confers the authors’ award every other year.
Judges for the Indiana Authors Awards included former winners, writers, educators, scholars, local bookstore owners, and librarians.
