Sean Carroll's "Remarkable Creatures" Selected WLA Literary Award Winner

The Literary Awards Committee of the Readers’ Section of the Wisconsin Library Association has chosen Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species by Sean Carroll of Madison as the winner of the 2010 Wisconsin Library Association Literary Award, given for the highest literary achievement by a Wisconsin author for a book published in 2009. Remarkable creatures abound as Carroll opens a window into the lives and work of top evolutionary explorers as their adventures pave the way for our understanding of evolution. Remarkable Creatures distinguishes itself in a way very few nonfiction books are able to; it contains an astonishing amount of knowledge and insight into evolutionary sciences while still remaining fast-paced and accessible to the layman. Sean Carroll’s work stands as a wonderful homage to Darwin’s work while bringing us up to the present where we can see how much our understanding of the evolutionary process has changed since those first forays into evolutionary thought.

The Wisconsin Library Association Literary Award is made possible by a grant from the WLA Foundation.

Two authors were chosen for their body of work as Notable Wisconsin Authors. James Magnuson (grew up in a series of small towns in Wisconsin) is the author of multiple fiction titles, including The Hounds of Winter, Windfall, and Ghost Dancing. Kenneth Stampp (born and raised in Milwaukee) is the author of several scholarly titles including The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-bellum South and The Era of Reconstruction, 1856-1877.

2010 Outstanding Achievement awards for 2009 publications include the following ten titles by Wisconsin authors. They are:

Lauren Groff (formerly of Madison) - Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories
Jim Knipfel (formerly of Green Bay) - Unplugging Philco
Greg Kot (formerly of Milwaukee) - Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music
Valerie Laken (Milwaukee) - Dream House: a Novel
Daniyal Mueenuddin (formerly of Elroy) - In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Michael Perry (Fall Creek) - Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting
Jay Reed (Milwaukee) - Thor and More
Kristine Rusch (formerly of Superior) - Diving into the Wreck
Kathleen Kline Schmitt (Madison), Ronald Bruch (Oshkosh), and Frederick Binkowski (Milwaukee) - People of the Sturgeon: Wisconsin's Love Affair with an Ancient Fish
Patrick Somerville (formerly of Green Bay) - The Cradle: a Novel

2010 Outstanding Achievement in Poetry awards for 2009 titles include the following five titles:

Bruce Dethlefsen (Westfield) - Breather
Jesse Lee Kercheval (Madison) - Cinema Muto
John Koethe (Milwaukee) - Ninety-Fifth Street: Poems
Margaret Rozga (Waukesha) - 200 Nights and One Day
Angela Sorby (Milwaukee) - Bird Skin Coat

Thanks to the 2010 Literary Awards Committee members for meeting the rewarding but difficult challenge of selecting the best Wisconsin authors have to offer. The committee members (pictured above) are: Ellen Jepson (chair), Jean Anderson, Anne Callaghan, Pat Chevis, Caroline Haskin, Brian Kopetsky, Amy Lutzke, Andrew Scott, Deb Shapiro, and Cece Wiltzius.