2023 Oklahoma Book Awards

Mary Had a Little Plan
by Tammi Sauer
Sterling Publishing Company

There is an abundance of charm in this book of time saving and economical family recipes. Jeannine Bulleigh’s lovely watercolor paintings of food enrich nearly every page. Set on warm, almond-colored paper, these illustrations rest both alongside and amid recipe pages. Across from the chapter heading pages, full-page “Save-It-Forward” diagrams indicate how that week’s dishes might lead to the next meal. Within chapters, the recipe pages are consistently composed of the same components organized in two columns. Headers and kickers for the pages are set in informal display type colored with orange and blue. For each dish, the ingredients list is a short column of semi-bold, sans serif. The second column of serif type typically features an italicized paragraph or two of the author’s personal observations. The anecdotes are followed by cooking instructions, and a note or two. On many pages, sidebars are included, bordered by thin, colored rules and a small watercolor ornament related to the subject. Overall, the designers have created a friendly, inviting mood appropriate to a book aiming to “make your family deliriously happy.” Bulleigh lives in Bartlesville.

Forgoing a dust jacket, the book cover has a fabric half binding, a vintage sepia-toned photograph of the Chickasaw National Capitol Building, and an embossed display typeface. On the spine, the title and author’s name appear to be embroidered onto the green fabric. On the inside, the chapter headings use a font that simulates hand tooling and are elegantly underscored with a thin, capped rule. The main text is consistently set in two columns with very readable 3-inch measures. Dark green text boxes stand out on the pages highlighting specific individuals and incidents that bleed off the fore edge. Photographs are handled with care throughout and are clean, sharp, and appropriately sized. These elements work together to create a refined tone and encourage the reader to explore the history of Tishomingo. McKinstry won the 2012 Oklahoma Book Award in design for the book Ilimpa’chi’ (Let’s Eat!): A Chickasaw Cookbook. Barnes’s nonfiction children’s book C is for Chickasaw, was a 2017 Oklahoma Book Award finalist. Chapman works for the Chickasaw Nation Communications Division.

Sabotage. That’s the word on factory worker Justine Byrne’s mind as she is repeatedly called to weld machine parts that keep failing with no clear cause. Could someone inside the secretive Carbon Division be deliberately undermining the factory’s war efforts? Raised by her late parents to think logically, she also can’t help wondering just what the oddly shaped carbon gadgets she assembles daily have to do with the boats the factory builds. Justine suspects German spies are at work within the building. Unable to trust anyone, she draws on the legacy of her unconventional upbringing to keep her division running and protect her coworkers, her country, and herself from a war that is suddenly too close to home. Evans is the author of the award-winning Faye Longchamp Archeological Mysteries. Her book Catacombs won the Oklahoma Book Award for fiction in 2020. She lives in Washington, Oklahoma.

Daugherty provides dual memoirs in this thought-provoking account of family life, death, grief, creativity, and the meaning of memory. In the first memoir “Cotton County,” he describes the forces that shape us: the “rituals of our regions,” and the family and friends who animate our lives and memories. Combining reminiscence, history, and meditation, Daugherty retraces his childhood in Texas and Oklahoma, where he first encountered the realities of politics, race, and class. In the second memoir “Unearthly Archives,” he expands on the first memoir by providing a meditation on the meaning of grief. He examines his lifelong store of literary readings, as well as the music he loves, to discover the true value of a life dedicated to art. Daugherty is Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing, Emeritus, at Oregon State University. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon.

The title of Mary B. Gray’s poetry, “Who Do You Think You Are?” could be read as an accusatory demand for self-identity. Upon reading the collection, the title is in fact an internal question for self-reflection. Each poem tells a story about an African American from history whose story is not widely known. The poems about the life of Bass Reeves, an escaped slave who became the first African American U.S. deputy marshal in 1875, is recounted by himself, his wife Nellie, and his convicted son Benjamin, who Bass brought to justice himself. Gray’s retelling of these lives in verse form is nothing short of magical. She weaves an intricate tapestry of communal identity for African Americans while also allowing the reader an opportunity to ask, “Who have I been told I am?” Poetry may not often be categorized as a thriller or page-turner, but Gray’s book is undoubtedly just that as you travel across centuries witnessing these walks of life often not covered in history class. Gray’s final lines offer an opportunity for the reader to define for themselves who they would like to be. Gray lives in Oklahoma City.

The writings of Josie Craig Berry, a well-known Oklahoma City school teacher, are without a doubt a significant literary recovery, so says the collection editor, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, in the introduction. With fifteen years of research into twentieth century Oklahoma poetry, Mish’s statement is anything but an exaggeration. The book provides poem after poem showcasing the mastery of language and biting sarcasm Berry infused within her poems. A reoccurring theme in Berry’s work is her honest and brutal depiction of life as an African American woman in an era when phrases such as civil rights were decades from common use. Other topics range from a one-sided conservation with Robert Frost to the deep sorrow of losing a child. Her poems offer a frank depiction of what the world looked like through multiple era-defining events such as World War I and II and the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. Despite the harrowing times she lived through, her words offer hope and love in the prayerful poems, “The Winds of Chance,” and “Prayer for 1975.” Thanks to the recovery work of Mish, Berry’s work as a poet and an educator lives on through this collection. Mish lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.