Quills Award
What do Tyler Perry, Anderson Cooper, Al Franken and Joan Didion all have in common?
They are among the 100-odd contenders for the second annual Quills Awards, unveiled Tuesday in New York by
Variety parent Reed Business Information and the NBC Universal TV stations.
Winners will be announced Oct. 10 during a gala ceremony hosted by NBC News personality Lester Holt.
Designed to inspire reading while promoting literacy, the Quills will honor scribes in 19 categories, including book of the year, biography/memoir and debut author. Anderson and Didion are competing in the biography/memoir category, while Perry and Franken are fielding contenders in the humor category.
Other new nods include a book-to-film prize co-sponsored by
Variety and the corporate literacy award, which Target will receive.
The Quills are the first kudos to honor excellence in publishing and include consumers in the voting process. Borders, Barnes & Noble, Parade, USA Today, American Booksellers Assn., Book Sense and Ingram Book Group are participating supporters.
Another inaugural designation, the platinum award, will be bestowed upon Caroline Kennedy in recognition of her work with the Kennedy Library Foundation and her commitment to providing support for education and literacy in New York. The Platinum Quill also pays tribute to the 50th anniversary of her father's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Profiles in Courage."
The nominating board has provided us "with a powerful list of outstanding finalists," said Gerry Byrne, chairman of the Quill Awards. "Now, we enter the stage that sets the Quills apart among book awards -- turning the voting process and final decisionmaking over to consumers."
Produced by Al Roker Entertainment, a one-hour Quill Awards special, hosted by Roker and NBC News' Natalie Morales, will be carried on the NBC O&Os on Oct. 28 and also air on various Peacock affils across the country.
Kudofest will be held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, exec produced by Roker and Lisa Sharkey.
For the first time, the ceremony will be streamed live via a link from MSNBC.com and Quills.msnbc.com.
To be eligible for nomination, a book must have been published in its original format in North America between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006, and marketed in the U.S. An extensive national panel of 6,000 invited booksellers and librarians made the nominations for the Quill Award categories.
Go to Thequills.org for a complete listing of the nominees.
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