Amelia Island Book Festival
Contact RM Fenn at 904.624.1665 or
[email protected]
March 6, 2016 12:00 p.m.
The winner of the 2017 Book Island Literary Award is Amy Quincy of Jacksonville, FL, who received the honor for her book Misadventures of a Happy Heart: A Memoir of Life Beyond Disability, during the Amelia Island Book Festival (AIBF).
The festival created the Book Island Literary Award to recognize an AIBF exhibiting author for an outstanding book with a distinctive voice, compelling story, originality and well-crafted writing, which exemplifies the values of reading and promoting literacy. Quincy accepted the award at the Book Festival’s Author Face-Off Gala Dinner, Feb. 17 at the Omni AI Resort.
Amy Quincy suffered a severe brain hemorrhage in her 30s, and despite the life-altering effects, she eventually returned to her first passion – writing. The result, according to many readers, was to produce an unflinching memoir, stripped bare of pretense.
“The author takes the subject of her daily life and treats it with equal doses of humor and reality,” one judge commented. “And this isn’t a fairy tale. The reader sees the bumps and bruises of each character. The writer’s keen sense of humor comes through without going over the top.”
Judges described Misadventures of a Happy Heart as engaging, eloquent, with an authentic narrative voice – and “very, very funny.”
“I laughed out loud and also cried,” one reviewer said. Other comments included: “It grabs the reader by his or her emotions.” “…a brave and well-told tale…” “…so eloquent in her observations…” “…definitely causes the reader to rethink her own life. Yet the book does not get maudlin or sappy about the writer’s everyday adaptations to just living.”
“We were so delighted to have the opportunity to get acquainted with Amy and congratulate her in person at the Author Face-off Gala,” said Raffaela Marie Fenn, AIBF president. “Her personality matches her captivating writing style. Her book touched the judges as it did many of us non-judges who have read it.”
The festival was impressed by the caliber of writing and story of many of the books submitted for the first-ever award. “We were awed by the level of excellence that the entries represented,” Fenn said.
Books were judged by a panel invited by the Festival Award Committee, including authors, speakers, educators and others with credentials and experience in evaluating writing and books.
Information about the 2018 festival and when AIBF will begin accepting entries for the Author Expo and the next Book Island Literary Award will be announced in late spring. For ongoing festival news and updates about this and other festival activities, visit www.ameliaislandbookfestival.org.
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A not-for-profit 501(c)3 Corporation, the Amelia Island Book Festival (AIBF) seeks to open up the world through books. Its mission is to promote life-long learning and an appreciation for books by providing quality events featuring local area and world-renowned authors and serving our students through the award-winning Authors in Schools Literacy Program.