IHS Author Series Set

An Indiana politician and environmentalist, a Hollywood movie director, a mysterious totem pole, and a beloved Indianapolis store will all be featured in this summer's Indiana Historical Society Author Series. The programs, free and open to the public, begin at noon in the multipurpose room at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis. 

The Author Series schedule is as follows:

• Tuesday, June 18--Ray E. Boomhower, The People's Choice: Congressman Jim Jontz of Indiana
• Tuesday, July 16--Wes D. Gehring, Robert Wise: Shadowlands
• Tuesday, August 20--Richard D. Feldman, Home before the Raven Caws: The Mystery of a Totem Pole
• Tuesday, September 17--Kenneth L. Turchi, L. S. Ayres and Company: The Store at the Crossroads of America

L.S. Ayres, Immigration Books Honored

The IHS Press book L. S. Ayres and Company: The Store at the Crossroads of America, written by Kenneth L. Turchi, won first place in the Midwest Regional Interest: Text category at the 23rd annual Midwest Books Awards. Ray E. Boomhower, senior editor at the Press, was on hand at the event in Bloomington, Minnesota, to receive the award from Sherry Roberts, chair of the Midwest Independent Publishers Association, the group that sponsors the awards.

The competition attracted 187 books, entered in 44 categories, from 75 publishers in a 12-state Midwestern region. The Midwest Independent Publishers Association is a nonprofit professional association that serves the upper Midwest publishing community, advancing the understanding and appreciation of publishing production, promotion, and related technologies, professions, and trades.

Also, the IHS Press book Indianapolis: A City of Immigrants, written by M. Teresa Baer, is one of three finalists in the Teen: Nonfiction category in the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Awards competition sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association. Winners will be announced at a May 29 ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. 

Biography Wins SPJ Honor

The IHS Press book The People's Choice: Congressman Jim Jontz of Indiana captured first place in the non-fiction book category at the Indiana Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists' annual Best in Indiana journalism contest.

The judge for the category said of the book: "Ray E. Boomhower's thoroughly researched and documented biography of Jim Jontz is a touching story well told--an inspiring portrait of a man's passion for the environment."

IHS Press Books Nominated for Awards

A number of IHS Press books have been named as finalists in the annual Midwest Book Awards sponsored by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association. Winners will be announced on May 8 at the Bloomington Center for the Arts in Bloomington, Minnesota.

The IHS Press books named as finalists are:

• Robert Wise: Shadowlands by Wes D. Gehring in the Biography category
• L.S. Ayres and Company: The Store at the Crossroads of America by Ken Turchi in the Midwest Regional Interest, Text, category
• Indianapolis: A City of Immigrants by M. Teresa Baer in the Young Adult, Nonfiction category
• Paint and Canvas: A Life of T.C. Steele by Rachel Berenson Perry in the Young Adult, Nonfiction category

The Mystery of a Totem Pole

In 1903 Alaska governor John Brady collected fifteen old totem poles for preservation at Sitka National Historical Park, creating one of the most famous collections of totem poles in the world. One pole became separated, and its fate remained a mystery for nearly ninety years.

Written by Richard D. Feldman, Home before the Raven Caws: The Mystery of a Totem Pole, published by the IHS Press in cooperation with the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art

, unravels the mystery of that missing pole from the Brady collection. The old Alaskan pole found its way to Indiana more than a hundred years ago. A new version of the pole stands today at the Eiteljorg.

Feldman is a family physician who has a longtime interest in Native American religion, art, and culture, having studied with the renowned scholar Joseph Epes Brown at Indiana University, Bloomington. Feldman was adopted into the Haida nation by Mary Yeltazie Swanson in 1996. Feldman lectures frequently on a variety of medical as well as historical topics and has been the subject of several public television documentaries.

Home before the Raven Caws costs $15.95 and is available from the Indiana Historical Society's Basile History Market.

IHS Press Books Finalists for National Awards

Three IHS Press books have been named as finalists in ForeWord Reviews 2012 Book of the Year Awards. Those books nominated and their categories are:

• Robert Wise: Shadowlands by Wes D. Gehring in the biography category
• Indianapolis: A City of Immigrants by M. Teresa Baer in the young adult nonfiction category
• Paint and Canvas: A Life of T. C. Steele by Rachel Berenson Perry in the young adult nonfiction category

The finalists were selected from 1,300 entries covering sixty-two categories of books from independent and academic presses. These books represent some of the best produced by small publishing houses in 2012.

Over the next two months a panel of sixty judges, librarians and booksellers only, will determine the winners. Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards, as well as Editor's Choice Prizes for fiction and nonfiction, will be announced at the American Library Association's annual conference in Chicago on Friday, June 28. ForeWord's Book of the Year Awards program was created to highlight the years most distinguished books from independent publishers.

Poetry Book Wins Honor

The IHS Press book And Know This Place: Poetry of Indiana, has won the poetry category in the Indiana Center for the Book's 2012 Best Books of Indiana competition.

The poetry category judges called the book "an encapsulation of an essential part of our state's literary history," and noted it was "deserving of a place of honor in the personal library of any lover of things either poetic or Hoosier. As a resource for a connoisseur or novice, it would be well placed on a bookshelf next to Czeslaw Milosz's A Book of Luminous Things and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems."
Finalists in the poetry category included Airmail from the Airpoets and Rob Griffith's book The Moon from Every Window. 

Kander's poetry has appeared in Flying Island, California Quarterly, Bathtub Gin,Wind, Southern Indiana Review, and Shiver. Her chapbook Taboo was published by Finishing Line Press in 2004. She has compiled and edited two volumes of poetry, The Linen Weave of Bloomington Poets and Celebrating Seventy, both published under Wind’s logo. 

Greer’s poems have appeared in Streets Magazine, Flying Island, Wind, and other publications. He has been active with the Bloomington Free Verse Poets, and he coedited, with Kander, Say This of Horses: A Selection of Poems published by the University of Iowa Press in 2007.