43rd NAACP Image Awards - Winners and Nominees for NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work [2012]

http://aalbc.it/nia2012

The awards were presented Friday, February 17th, 2012 at the The Shrine Auditorium Los Angeles, CA

In previous years, when a sufficient number of people here cared about such things we would rake the NAACP and it's literature nominees over the coals [check a conversation from 2005].

So in the tradition of old I'll carry on. I believe the list of nominees are indeed better, but as usual the focus is on celebrity -- indeed in every literature category in which there was a celebrity nominated the celebrity won. Tony Dugny won for his children's book, Shirley Strawberry for being a debut authors, Hill Harper (yet again), and so on...

It was however nice to see Reshonda Tate Billingsley win in the fiction category. Fortunately for ReShonda, this was the only category where a celebrity was not nominated.

Reshonda Tate Billingsley

That said, I'm still very grateful that the NAACP continues to honor and highlight Black literature. There are very few entities doing this type of work.

The 10th annual Hurston/Wright Foundation's Legacy Award was cancelled last year. I'm in the industry and so few people are talking about this it is scary.

As we have done successfully for the past nine years Hurston/Wright prepared to hold its 10th annual Legacy Award ceremony to honor a galaxy of stars. Although we developed an exciting program to showcase talented Black writers, because of extremely low-ticket sales we have had to cancel the ceremony. What happened to the Legacy Award ceremony is emblematic of what is transpiring throughout the publishing industry. And is all the more reason for the Foundation to continue its programs. Having to cancel the ceremony has made us more resolute than ever to serve the community of talented Black writers. We welcome any suggestions you may have for how we can better navigate the ever-changing paradigm shift affecting how all of us access knowledge and information. Winners and finalists will receive the coveted statue of the ancient African symbol of Djhuiti, the patron saint of writing, speech and divine intellectual pursuit.

A luta continua!

Congratulations to all the winners and the finalists in the NAACP Image Awards for outstanding literature. I know how much work goes into crafting a work that you hope will be appreciated by the public. This award validates your efforts and it gives us, the reading public, a platform on which to base our hopes that great works will continue to be produced.

Thanks for posting this Troy!