Ernest Gaines Literary Award deadline nears

The deadline for submissions to the 2015 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence is Aug. 15.

Sponsored by Baton Rouge Area Foundation donors, the Gaines Award honors outstanding fiction —novels or short-story collections — from rising African-American aut­hors published in 2015. Galleys for 2015 publications are also accepted.

The award recognizes Louisiana native Ernest Gaines’ extraordinary contribution to the literary world. Information on criteria and entrance forms for the award, which includes a $10,000 cash prize, is available at www.ernestjgainesaward.org.

Submissions are judged by a national literary panel, and the winner will be announced in November. The award ceremony will take place on Jan. 21, 2016, at the Manship Theatre in downtown Baton Rouge.

A Louisiana native, Gaines’ critically acclaimed novel The Auto­biography of Miss Jane Pittman was adapted into a 1974 made-for-TV movie that received nine Emmy awards. His 1993 book A Lesson Before Dying won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. He is Writer-in-Residence Emeritus at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

The 2014 Gaines Award winner was Mitchell S. Jackson for The Residue Years, which was also named an Honor Book by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

This article originally published in the June 8, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.