The Eugene and Marilyn Glick
Indiana Authors Awards

Kenneth Kraegel, originally from Mishawaka, followed an unorthodox path to becoming a children’s author and illustrator. He volunteered in Honduras, Uganda, and Chicago before finding work on Wyoming construction sites and Midwestern vegetable farms. Since then, his books have been recognized by the Chicago Public Library, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times Book Review. He now lives just across the Michiana border in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with his wife and family.

Shifa Saltagi Safadi is passionate about reading and writing about the Syrian American experience. A former English teacher and graduate of Indiana University Northwest, she has written several children’s and middle grade books, including the National Book Award-winning Kareem Between and the picture book The Gift of Eid. Shifa currently lives in Valparaiso with her husband and four children.

Arriel Vinson is an Indianapolis-born author who writes about being young, Black, and in search of freedom. Her debut YA novel-in-verse, Under the Neon Lights, is a 2026 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award winner, a Reese’s Book Club LitUp selection, and a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection. Arriel earned her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and is a Tin House YA Scholar, Highlights Foundation scholarship recipient, and Walter Grant recipient.

Joyelle McSweeney is the award-winning author of ten books of poetry, drama, and prose, a well-known critic, and a vital publisher of international literature in translation. Her book, Toxicon and Arachne (Nightboat Books, 2020), was called “frightening and brilliant” by Dan Chiasson in The New Yorker and earned her the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America. Her 2014 essay collection, The Necropastoral: Poetry, Media, Occults, is widely regarded as a visionary work of eco-criticism. Her debut poetry volume, The Red Bird, inaugurated the Fence Modern Poets Series in 2001, while her verse play, Dead Youth, or the Leaks, inaugurated the Leslie Scalapino Prize for Innovative Women Performance Artists in 2014. She moved to South Bend in 2006 to join the faculty of the Creative Writing Program in the English Department at Notre Dame.

Phillip Cox is a writer and native Hoosier from Indianapolis. He now lives in New York City, where he previously worked for the design firm Pentagram. He is also the co-author of Speak Data: Artists, Scientists, Thinkers, and Dreamers on How We Live Our Lives in Numbers (Chronicle Books).

Born in Indianapolis, Niall Cronin is an architecture and design photographer living in New York City. His work has been shown at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (iMOCA) and Edington Gallery. He’s been published in the Financial Times, Fast Company, and Time Out. What A Building Does: The Hoosier Modernisms of Evans Woollen (a collaboration with writer Phil Cox) is Niall’s first book.

Scott Carson is a pen name used by Indiana author Michael Koryta. He is a New York Times-bestselling author whose work has been lauded by Stephen King, James Patterson, and Sandra Brown, among many others. His books have won or been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Edgar® Award, Shamus Award, Barry Award, Quill Award, International Thriller Writers Award, and the Golden Dagger. Koryta was raised in Bloomington, Indiana, where he graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.

Kaveh Akbar is the New York Times bestselling author of the novel Martyr!—a finalist for the National Book Award and one of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year—and two books of poetry: Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf. He is also the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic and editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine and, with Paige Lewis, co-editor of Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance. Akbar received his bachelor’s degree from Purdue University and his MFA from Butler University in Indianapolis.

Mary Ardery is the author of Level Watch (June Road Press, 2025), winner of the 2026 IPPY Award Gold Medal in Poetry. Her poems appear in Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review online, RHINO, and elsewhere. Her prose and photography appear in publications such as The Sun, DIAGRAM, The Indianapolis Review, and The Cincinnati Review online. She earned a B.A. from DePauw University and an MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she won an Academy of American Poets Prize. The recipient of a Lifelong Arts Fellowship from the Indiana Arts Commission, she was born and raised in Bloomington and now lives in West Lafayette, Indiana, with her husband, two sons, and a Boston Terrier named Bug.

Bennett is a playwright and museum educator whose work has been produced by Chicago’s City Lit Theater, Franklin College, Wabash College, University of Southern Indiana, Otherworld Theatre of Chicago, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Newfields, Spirit and Place, and the Phoenix Theatre. He is a scholarship recipient for the Kenyon Playwrights Conference and recipient of an Arthur Jordan grant. Bennett is a 2020 Blue Ink finalist for Chicago’s American Blues Theatre, and he currently produces educational theatre.

Marianne Boruch has written twelve books of poetry and lives in West Lafayette, Indiana, with her husband where they raised their son.

Women Writing for (a) Change, Bloomington, the 2026 Literary Champion, has been growing its welcoming writing environment for the past 22 years. The organization creates safe and inspiring learning opportunities for individuals who wish to pursue the art of writing as a tool for growth and change. Throughout the years, it has grown from a group of about 16 women to a nonprofit with several outreach programs created in collaboration with local organizations and nonprofits.