Newport News, Virginia -March 30, 2018 -The Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Inc. (BCALA) and BiblioBoard announce winners of the 2018 Self-Publishing E-Book Award. Following the model of the current BCALA Literary Awards, the award honors the best self-published E-Books in fiction and poetry by an African American author in the U.S. This is the third time BCALA and Biblioboard have given this innovative award. The recipients will receive awards during the 2018 American Library Association Annual Conference on June 24 in New Orleans, LA.

FICTION

The fiction category winner is Sunshine in the Delta (Palmetto Publishing Group, LLC) by Erica Marisa Sandifer. This book dives into history through a young girl named Neeyla. She comes from a family of sharecroppers, and has only known poverty and dysfunction. Determined to break the cycle, she decides to take a job “in town” as the help to make her own money. Sandifer currently works at Turn row Book Company and hopes to inspire other writers and citizens for generations to come.

POETRY

The winner for the E-Book Best Poetry Award is The New Lynchings by Adisa Ajamu. The poems speak to the constant struggle for equality and liberation in the African American community. From 2015 to now he has published 7 books of poetry varying in content from love, heartbreak, the uplifting of the black community, depression and many others.

Members of the BCALA E-Book Literary Awards Jury are: Tiffany A. Duck (Chair), Suffolk Public Library; Gladys Smiley Bell, Hampton University; Dana Evans, Hampton University; Annie Payton, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University; Stacy Williams, University of Southern California; and Eddie Hughes, Southern University.