Three UNCP authors deserve special cheers for winning awards recently:

Rob Christensen, author of The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics, has been awarded the 2008 Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. The successor to the organization’s Mayflower Cup, the Ragan Old North State Award honors Sam Ragan: poet, critic, publisher, and the first Secretary of what is now the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Anne Shelby, author of The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folktales, has received an Aesop Accolade from the Children’s Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society. This book of fourteen stories for readers age 10 and up is like a series of Jack Tales — but with a girl hero (who ends up saving Jack more than once)! Traditional folktale plots meet contemporary sensibility.

Wesley C. Hogan, author of Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America, has earned the 2008 Library of Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction. This is the third award for Hogan; Many Minds has also been awarded the 2008 Lillian Smith Book Award by the Southern Regional Council as well as the 2009 Scott Bills Memorial Prize by the Peace History Society.

Congratulations to all three authors for your good work!

–ellen