Southern Book Prize (formerly the SEBA Book Award and SIBA Book Award) is a literary award given by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA). It was first awarded in 1999.[1] Nominated books must be Southern in nature or by a Southern author, have been published the previous year, and have been nominated by a SIBA-member bookstore or one of their customers. Voting categories include fiction, Nonfiction, poetry, cooking and children's literature. In 2016, the award was renamed the Southern Book Prize and awarded in honor of southern writer Pat Conroy, who died in March 2016.[2]
The first awards were given in 1999. From 1999 through 2007 winners were chosen by popular vote through an online voting mechanism. Starting in 2008, winners were chosen from the list of finalists by a jury of SIBA booksellers.[3] Since 2019 candidates have been nominated by Southern indie booksellers before the ballot of finalists in three categories is voted on by bookstore customers. According to SIBA, 1800 ballots were cast to select the winners of the 2023 prize.[4]
| 1999 | Children | Out of the Ocean | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiction | ||||
| Nonfiction | Confederates in the Attic | |||
| Poetry | Someone Will Go On Owing | |||
| 2000 | Children | Bugs & Critters I Have Known | ||
| Fiction | Look Back All the Green Valley | |||
| Nonfiction | Ecology of a Cracker Childhood | |||
| Poetry | Elegy for the Southern Drawl | |||
| 2001 | Children | Because of Winn-Dixie | ||
| Fiction | Jim the Boy | |||
| Nonfiction | Somebody Told Me | |||
| Poetry | Zinc Fingers | |||
| 2002 | Children | How Animals Saved the People | ||
| Fiction | ||||
| Nonfiction | Ava’s Man | |||
| 2003 | Children | Hoot | ||
| Cookbook | ||||
| Fiction | ||||
| Nonfiction | My Losing Season | |||
| Poetry | Catching Light | |||
| 2004 | Children | How I Became a Pirate | [5] | |
| Cookbook | ||||
| Fiction | Lunch at the Piccadilly | |||
| Nonfiction | ||||
| Poetry | (ed.) | Locales | ||
| 2005 | Children | and Ridley Pearson | Peter and the Starcatchers | |
| Cookbook | Frank Stitt’s Southern Table | |||
| Fiction | Saints at the River | |||
| Nonfiction | We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier | |||
| Poetry | ||||
| 2006 | Children | (with Bryan Collier) | Rosa | [6] |
| Cookbook | and Charlotte Hays | Being Dead is No Excuse | ||
| Fiction | Gods in Alabama | |||
| Nonfiction | Marley & Me | |||
| Poetry | What Travels with Us | |||
| 2007 | Children | Alabama Moon | ||
| Cookbook | I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence | |||
| Fiction | Thirteen Moons | |||
| Nonfiction | Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee | |||
| Poetry | Keep and Give Away | |||
| 2008 | Children | with Brian Lies (illus.) | Deep in the Swamp | |
| Cookbook | ||||
| Fiction | Garden Spells | |||
| Nonfiction | Animal, Vegetable, Miracle | |||
| Poetry | ||||
| 2009 | Children | and Mary Nethery | Two Bobbies | |
| Cookbook | Screen Doors and Sweet Tea | |||
| Fiction | Serena | |||
| Nonfiction | ||||
| Poetry | Dear Darkness | |||
| Young Adult | Graceling | |||
| 2010 | Children | |||
| Cookbook | and Matt Lee | |||
| Fiction | ||||
| Nonfiction | ||||
| 2011 | Children | Mockingbird | ||
| Cookbook | Southern My Way: Simple Recipes, Fresh Flavors | |||
| Fiction | Burning Bright | |||
| Nonfiction | ||||
| Poetry | ||||
| Young Adult | Countdown | |||
| 2012 | Children | Jo MacDonald Saw a Pond | ||
| Cookbook | ||||
| Fiction | Iron House | |||
| Nonfiction | Lions of the West | |||
| Poetry | Abandoned Quarry | |||
| Young Adult | Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact | |||
| 2013 | Children | |||
| Cookbook | ||||
| Fiction | ||||
| Nonfiction | Stand Up That Mountain: The Battle to Save One Small Community in the Wilderness Along the Appalachian Trail | |||
| Poetry | Descent | |||
| Young Adult | Three Times Lucky | |||
| 2014 | Children | |||
| Cooking | Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey: Recipes from My Three Favorite Food Groups and Then Some | |||
| Fiction | Whistling Past the Graveyard | |||
| Nonfiction | Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital | |||
| Poetry | ||||
| Young Adult | ||||
| 2015 | Children | Brown Girl Dreaming | ||
| Cooking | Heritage | |||
| Fiction | ||||
| Nonfiction | Factory Man | |||
| Young Adult | with Brett Helquist (illus.) | League of Seven |
| 2016 | Cookbook | Soul Food Love | [7] [8] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiction | My Sunshine Away | |||
| History & Life Stories | Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab | |||
| Literary | Above the Waterfall | |||
| Mystery | Bull Mountain | |||
| Nonfiction | Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta | |||
| Thriller | ||||
| Young Adult | Mosquitoland | |||
| Youngsters | Serafina and the Black Cloak | |||
| 2017 | Biography, Autobiography & Memoir | [9] | ||
| Cooking | Deep Run Roots: Stories & Recipes from My Corner of the South | |||
| Creative Nonfiction | Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis | |||
| Fiction (Coming of Age) | Commonwealth | |||
| Fiction (Family Life) | ||||
| Fiction (Historical) | Chasing the North Star | |||
| Fiction (Literary) | Over the Plain Houses | |||
| Juvenile | Lily and Dunkin | |||
| Southern Stories & Stories by Southerners | ||||
| Thriller | Redemption Road | |||
| 2018 | Biography & History | Coretta: My Life, My Love, My Legacy | [10] | |
| Fiction (Literary) | ||||
| Fiction (Women & Family | Young Jane Young | |||
| Juvenile Fiction | Flame in the Mist | |||
| Tumble & Blue | ||||
| Mystery, Thriller, Suspense | Gradle Bird | |||
| Nonfiction | Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America | |||
| Southern Fiction | Before We Were Yours | |||
| 2019 | Children's | Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe | [11] | |
| Fiction | ||||
| Nonfiction | ||||
| 2020 | Children's | [12] [13] | ||
| Fiction | ||||
| Nonfiction | Tell Me a Story: My Life With Pat Conroy | |||
| 2021 | Children's | with Gordon C. James | I Am Every Good Thing | [14] |
| Fiction | [15] | |||
| Nonfiction | Memorial Drive | |||
| 2022 | Children's | with Charly Palmer (illus.) | Keep Your Head Up | [16] [17] |
| Fiction | When Ghosts Come Home | |||
| Nonfiction | Graceland, At Last | |||
| 2023 | Children's | with Gracey Zhang (illus.) | Nigel and the Moon | [18] [19] |
| Fiction | Lark Ascending | |||
| Nonfiction | Bomb Shelter |