The International Association of Culinary Professionals announced that its 2017 IACP Cookbook Award has been presented to Victuals: An Appalachian Journey with Recipes by Ronnie Lundy!
The Weatherford Awards were established in 1970 by Al Perrin who was at the time a full-time volunteer at the Berea College Library. He wanted to honor an outstanding book about Appalachia each year. In some early years, no book was deemed worthy. Since then, many changes have been made, and currently, they are co-sponsored by Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association and awarded at the annual Appalachian Studies Conference. There are three winners for 2016: In nonfiction for Reconstruction’s Ragged Edge: The Postwar Life in the Southern Mountains by Steven E. Nash of East Tennessee State; in fiction for The Birds of Opulence by Crystal Wilkinson of Berea College; and in poetry for Believe What You Can by Marc Harshman, the Poet-Laureate of West Virginia. Finalists in non-fiction are Smoky Jack by Paul J. Adams (1901-1985), Family of Earth: A Southern Mountain Childhood by Wilma Dykeman (1920-2006), and Appalachia Revisited: New Perspectives on Place, Tradition, and Progress by William Schumann and Rebecca Adkins Fletcher. Finalists in fiction are Night Garden by Carrie Mullins and The Risen by Ron Rash. Finalists in Poetry were The 13th Sunday After Pentecost by Joseph Bathanti, The Mad Farmer’s Wife by Rita Sims Quillen, and Blue Etiquette by Kathleen Driskell of Louisville.
Crystal Wilkinson has won the 2017 Judy Gains Young Book Award presented by Transylvania University for her novel, The Birds of Opulence. The award, honoring recent works by writers in the Appalachian Region, was first presented in 2015.