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The Quill Awards Announce Nominees
Caroline Kennedy to Receive First Platinum Quill Award
Reed Business Information (RBI) and the NBC Universal Television Stations announced the five nominees in each of 19 categories for the 2006 Quill Awards, during a live-streamed event hosted by Al Roker at the Borders store at Columbus Circle, New York City. The winners will be announced on October 10th during a gala ceremony hosted by NBC News’ Lester Holt. Produced by Al Roker Entertainment, Inc., the one-hour Quill Awards television special, hosted by Al Roker and NBC News’ Natalie Morales, will be carried on the NBC Universal Owned and Operated Television Stations on Saturday, October 28, 2006, and will also air on various NBC affiliates across the country. For the first time, the Quills awards event will be streamed live via a link from MSNBC.com, www.quills.msnbc.com. The Quills is the first awards program to honor excellence in publishing and include consumers in the voting process.
The Platinum Award is a Quills executive committee-selected annual award honoring special achievement. In recognition of her important work with the Kennedy Library Foundation and her commitment to providing support for education and literacy in New York, Caroline Kennedy will be presented with the inaugural Platinum Quill Award. The Platinum Quill also pays tribute to the 50th anniversary of her father's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles In Courage.
The Quills Corporate Literacy Award will be given to Target, in recognition of its numerous and pro-active literacy and book programs including its national Ready. Sit. Read! program, Target Parent/Child Book Club, and sponsorship of Family Reading Nights, Reach Out and Read, Letters About Literature, United Through Reading, and several book festivals. “Target recognizes reading is the foundation for lifelong learning and has created several programs to help instill a love of reading in children," said Laysha Ward, Vice President, Community Relations, Target. "It is an honor to receive the Quills Corporate Literacy Award in recognition of our continued commitment to early childhood reading.”
During the consumer-voting period, the NBC Universal Owned and Operated Television Stations and NBC affiliates will run 30- and 15-second television spots to publicize the Quill Awards and drive viewers to the voting site. MSNBC.com, the number one TV news site on the web, averaging 25 million unique visitors per month, will run strategic promotions and editorial coverage of top Quills news throughout the site, including its home page. PARADE and USA Today will run a series of daily national ads regarding consumer voting for the Quills, and Borders will conduct extensive in-store and consumer e-mail Quill marketing. Barnes & Noble will promote the Quill’s nominated titles on barnesandnoble.com, Book Sense stores will distribute Quill Awards bookmarks to consumers, and Ingram Book Group will list the nominated titles on its website and in an ad.
Opening the awards process to include the reading public, winners will be determined by consumer voting online at www.quillsvote.com and at www.quills.msnbc.com; online voting begins on August 22 and continues through September 30, 2006. Readers can cast their ballots for their favorites among the nominees short-listed for each category, and choose from the finalists in all genres for the “Book of the Year.”
To be eligible for the long list of nominees, a book must have been published in its original format in North America between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006, and marketed in the United States. It must also meet one of the following criteria: a starred review in Publishers Weekly, a Borders Original Voices title, or an appearance at the top of the Bestseller lists of Publishers Weekly or Borders. An extensive national panel of approximately 6,000 invited booksellers and librarians made the nominations for The Quill Award categories. See a complete listing of the 2006 Quills nominees here.