My Comments at the Book Festival

Yesterday I had the priviledge of presenting the Palmetto Book Award to Dr. Walter Edgar.  Here are my comments:

Information about the Palmetto Book Award

The South Carolina Center for the Book has presented the Palmetto Book Award annually at the South Carolina Book Festival since its inception in 2002. The Palmetto Book Award honors a South Carolina person or organization that works to promote the literary arts and to foster a creative atmosphere in South Carolina.

Previous winners of the Palmetto Book Award are:

·        South Carolina Young Writers Conference in 2006,

·        the Hub City Writers Project in 2005,

·        the Beaufort County Library in 2004,

·        Tom Johnson of the South Caroliniana Library in 2003, and

·        Sara Breibart of the Charleston County Public Library in 2002.

From 2002-2006, the award was selected by the SC Center for the Book’s advisory committee. The 2007 Palmetto Book Award is the first one selected by a nomination process open to the public.

Information about SC Center for the Book

The SC Center for the Book is the South Carolina affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book in Washington, DC and is a cooperative project of the South Carolina State Library, the USC School of Library and Information Science, and The Humanities Council^SC. Formerly known as the Palmetto Book Alliance, the SC Center for the Book changed its name in 2006 to align with the 49 other Centers for the Book across the country. The Center’s mission is to celebrate South Carolina’s rich literary heritage and bring public attention to the importance of books, writers, and reading. The Palmetto Book Award is just one of the ongoing projects of the SC Center for the Book, which also include the South Carolina Literary Map and the Letters About Literature awards for students.

And now I get to say some nice things about the 2007 award winner:

Every morning on my way to work I tune in to SC ETV Radio and listen to the news, events, and more recently, I’ve been keeping up with Dr. Edgar’s South Carolina from A-Z… Here is my version:

·        A is for Author

·        B is for Bar-b-q (he’s an official judge)

·        C is for honorary degrees he holds from Coker College, Coastal Carolina University (alliteration)

·        D is for another honorary degree from Davidson College

·        E is for ETV radio featuring Walter Edgar’s Journal

·        F is for fiction that he’s read on his other radio show “Southern Read”

·        G is for gardening, one of his hobbies

·        H is for (what do you think this is for?)   HISTORY, the most obvious word we associate with Dr. Edgar

Dr. Walter Edgar has long been a positive force in the literary arts in South Carolina with his numerous publications, his work as editor of the recent South Carolina Encyclopedia, his programs on South Carolina Public Radio, and his position as director of the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, among other affiliations and activities. He received three separate nominations for this awards.

Here is a quote from one of the nominations:  “Dr. Edgar has successfully merged his love of history with a fascination for the South and good literature into several publications that tell the story of life in South Carolina. His talent as a writer, or more appropriately a storyteller, ensures that his work will be read by all types of people, not just historians.”

It gives me great pleasure to present this well-deserved award to Dr. Walter Edgar.

SC Book Festival | Schedule

   

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