Columbia, SC –The South Carolina State Library’s Center for the Book announces the recipients of the 2008 South Carolina Center for the Book Awards for Writing, Teaching and Literary Arts Advocacy. This year’s award winners are noted South Carolina author Mary Alice Monroe, for Writing; Eileen Bergreen of Hilton Head Island Middle School, for Teaching; and the Arts Council of Beaufort County, for Literary Arts Advocacy.
The SC Center for the Book Awards were formerly a single award known as the Palmetto Book Award. In 2008, the Palmetto Book Award expanded to honor excellence in Writing, Teaching and Literary Arts Advocacy. Nominees must be published writers, current teachers, or active promoters of the literary arts in South Carolina, as described in a one page nomination letter. Winners are selected from nominations submitted to the SC Center for the Book by the general public.
Any individual or organization in South Carolina that works to promote the literary arts and to foster a creative atmosphere in the state is eligible for nomination for the Literary Arts Advocacy award. Any current teacher of the literary or language arts at any level or type of school in South Carolina is eligible for nomination for the Teaching award. Any South Carolina writer of any genre whose work was published in the previous calendar year is eligible for nomination for the Writing Award. Previous winners of the Palmetto Book Award include Dr. Walter Edgar (2007), SC Young Writers Conference (2006), and Hub City Writers Project (2005).
The South Carolina Center for the Book at will hold its annual awards ceremony on August 14, 2008, at the Hilton Head Island Library (Beaufort County) from 2:00-4:00pm. The ceremony is free and open to the public.
The South Carolina Center for the Book is the South Carolina affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book and is a cooperative project of the South Carolina State Library, the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science, and The Humanities CouncilSC.
For more information about the South Carolina Center for the Book, please visit www.sccenterforthebook.org.
