New York Times best-selling author Rita Williams-Garcia is the winner of the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2019 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature.
She will accept the award at a public presentation at Hardesty Regional Library’s Connor’s Cove, 8316 E. 93rd St., Friday, May 3, at 7 p.m. She also will present awards to winners of the 2019 Young People’s Creative Writing Contest at the ceremony.
Williams-Garcia is being recognized for writing bestselling novels for young adults that inspire imaginations, dreams and pride in all ages. Her books encourage cultural awareness and the importance of believing in yourself.
As a kindergartener, Williams-Garcia remembers asking for a pencil and paper to write stories while her classmates colored pictures. By 12-years-old she was sending short stories for publications consideration, only to be “politely rejected.”
Not long after that though, at age 14, she sold her first short story to Highlights Magazine. As a 20-year-old student at Hofstra, she sold her second story to Essence Magazine.
Studying at Hofstra with authors Richard Price and Sonia Pilcer, she began writing about, Joyce, a character in her first book Blue Tights, which was eventually published when she was 30.
“It was so important to me to tell this story about a girl with great talent but low self-esteem,” said Williams-Garcia. “I had seen so many ‘Joyces’ but not enough books to tell their story. It took seven years and many typewritten drafts to get this novel right. I like to encourage aspiring writers and young readers to follow their dreams, even in the face of rejection or many, many retries. Follow your dreams anyway. You learn so much with each and every try.”
One Crazy Summer, the first book in the Gaither Sister series, follows three sisters in the summer of 1968 as they visit their estranged mother in Oakland. It was awarded the National Book Award, Coretta Scott King Award, Newbery Medal Honor Book and the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. The sequels, P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama, were both Coretta Scott King Award winners.
Clayton Byrd Goes Underground, released in 2017, is Williams-Garcia’s newest release. The story follows a young boy who loves spending time with his grandfather and local blues musicians. It also was a National Book Award finalist.
The Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature gives formal recognition, on behalf of the Tulsa County community, to a nationally acclaimed author who has made a significant contribution to the field of literature for young adults. The award, presented by the Tulsa Library Trust, consists of a $7,500 cash prize and an engraved crystal book.
Past winners include: Pam Munoz Ryan (2018), Laurie Halse Anderson (2017), Gordon Korman (2016), Sharon Draper (2015), Jack Gantos (2014), Jim Murphy (2013), Jacqueline Woodson (2012), Kathryn Lasky (2011), Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (2010), Christopher Paul Curtis (2009), Louis Sachar (2008), Kate DiCamillo (2007), Sharon Creech (2006), Avi (2005), Susan Cooper (2004), Russell Freedman (2003), Richard Peck (2002), E.L. Konigsburg (2001), Jerry Spinelli (2000), Jane Yolen (1999), Cynthia Voigt (1998), Gary Paulsen (1997), Walter Dean Myers (1996), Lois Lowry (1994), Katherine Paterson (1993), Madeleine L’Engle (1992) and S.E. Hinton (1991).
For more information on the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature or library programming, call the AskUs Hotline, 918-549-7323, or visit the library’s website, www.tulsalibrary.org.
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