The 48th Annual Georgia Author of the Year Awards were held Saturday, June 16th at Kennesaw State University (KSU). Alice Friman won the Georgia Author of the Year Award for poetry  for her 2011 collection Vinculum (LSU Press). Poetry judge and KSU English Professor Ralph Tejeda Wilson said Friman’s newest collection is “a work that is mature and sustained in vision, with an eloquence that illustrates poetry as a species of musical speech while retaining a quality still conversational. The poems are insightful, witty, and beautifully made. It is the sort of work young poets can learn from, and older poets can aspire to.” Friman is poet-in-residence at Georgia College & State University and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the University of Indianapolis. She is the author of five collections, including Zoo and The Book of the Rotten Daughter.

Rupert Fike was selected as the finalist for his 2011 collection Lotus Buffet (Brick Road Poetry Press), which Wilson described as “a book of great good humor and charm, and surprising turns upon every page. It is also a work that examines nostalgia as an influence upon the formation and sustenance of one’s conscience.”

–Jenny Sadre-Orafai