Three IU School of Liberal Arts professors are Indiana Author Awards 2024 honorees

The IU School of Liberal Arts is proud to share that literary achievements of three celebrated faculty authors are recognized on the coveted shortlist as part of the 2024 Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards. Dr. Edward Curtis, William M. and Gail M. Plater Chair of the Liberal Arts, Director, Arabic Studies Program, and Professor of World Languages and Cultures, Dr. Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism and Public Relations, and Sarah Layden, Assistant Professor of English, were all honored with being named to the 52 shortlist.

The high-profile competition selects works by writers with deep Indiana connections whose work has been published in the last two years. Nine titles are chosen from a diverse set of stories in categories that include nonfiction, fiction, genre, middle grade, drama and young adult.

Established in 2009, Indiana Humanities runs the competition every other year with support from Glick Philanthropies. Judges included former Indiana Author Awards winners, scholars, writers, educators, librarians and owners of local bookstores.

Dr. Edward Curtis, 2024 Nonfiction Honoree

2024 Nonfiction Shortlist: Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest

Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest vividly portrays the intrepid men and women who busted sod on the short-grass prairies of the Dakotas, peddled needles and lace on the streets of Cedar Rapids, and worked in the railroad car factories of Michigan City, Indiana. It shows how the first two generations of Midwestern Syrians created a life that was Arab, Muslim, and American, all at the same time.

2024 Nonfiction Shortlist: Arab Indianapolis

Arab Indianapolis is the first book to reveal the history of Arabic-speaking people in Indianapolis. Through short essays, over eighty beautiful photographs, interviews, and even a few recipes, this collection portrays the diversity of Arab-descended Hoosiers who call Indianapolis home.

Dr. Chris Lamb, 2024 Nonfiction Honoree

2024 Nonfiction Shortlist: Stolen Dreams. The 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars and Little League Baseball's Civil War

When the eleven- and twelve-year-olds on the all-Black Cannon Street YMCA AlI-Star team registered for a baseball tournament in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1955, it put the team and the forces of integration on a collision course with segregation, bigotry, and the southern way of life. The Civil Rights Movement, as it became known, brought change in ways that were unprecedented, unpredictable, and often violent. It would not be clear to those boys for years, perhaps decades, that they were part of the struggle for civil rights in the United States.

Sarah Layden, 2024 Fiction Honoree

2024 Fiction Shortlist: Imagine Your Life Like This

We all long for something; what if we get it?

The characters who inhabit Sarah Layden’s short story collection are on the verge of change-if only they could see themselves and their situations with greater clarity. Caught in the midst of crises, they stumble toward the future without fully understanding their past.