Oomen wins Michigan Author Award
From staff reports
The Library of Michigan (LM) has announced Empire resident Anne-Marie Oomen as the recipient of the 2023-2024 Michigan Author Award.
Oomen is the founding editor of Dunes Review; former president of Michigan Writers, Inc.; and instructor at Solstice MFA in Creative Writing at Lasell University in Massachusetts and at Interlochen College of Creative Arts. She appears at conferences throughout the country.
After nearly 20 years teaching all levels of students from junior high to graduate school, Oomen became writer-in-residence at Interlochen Arts Academy from 1997-99, and then chair of the creative writing department from 1999-2008. She oversaw the program development of The Writing House, which was dedicated in April 2003. She continued as instructor of creative writing (poetry, playwriting, and nonfiction) and supervising editor of Interlochen Review until 2014.
Her 2022 memoir As Long as I Know You: the Mom Book won Association of Writers & Writing Programs’ Sue William Silverman nonfiction award, a Michigan Notable Book Award in 2023, and a Silver IPPY. The Long Fields: Essays of Comfort and Home is her latest work.
Other Michigan Notable Book selections authored by Oomen include Pulling Down the Barn, House of Fields, and The Lake Michigan Mermaid (with Linda Nemec Foster). Her edited work ELEMENTAL: A Collection of Michigan Nonfiction was also a Michigan Notable Book title. Additional works include American Map: Essays, Uncoded Woman, and Love, Sex and 4-H. She has written seven plays, including award-winning Northern Belles (inspired by oral histories of women farmers), and Secrets of Luuce Talk Tavern, winner of the Community Theatre Association of Michigan Playwriting contest. Oomen has developed scripts for two recent video projects, When Water Moves (with a Michigan Arts and Culture Council grant) and Plague Phase (with NatureChange), both of which reflect her interest in water justice and environmental issues.
The Michigan Author Award was established in 1992 with the intention of recognizing significant Michigan authors with a lifetime achievement award. Previously developed by the Michigan Library Association, the award is now facilitated by the Library of Michigan and Michigan Center for the Book.
This year’s Michigan Author Award selection committee includes representatives from the Library of Michigan; Bath Township Public Library; Clinton-Macomb District Library; Capital Area District Libraries; University of Michigan Library; Lansing City Pulse newspaper; Michigan Department of Education; Michigan Center for the Book; Michigan Humanities; and Michigan State Historic Preservation Office.
