TCCL News & Events

Award-winning journalist and internationally renowned author Geraldine Brooks is the winner of the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2009 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award.

Brooks, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “March” and best-selling “People of the Book,” will receive the prestigious Helmerich award on Dec. 4 at a black-tie dinner and will give a free public presentation at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 5 at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue.

At the public presentation, Brooks will speak about her life and works, answer questions from the audience and sign books. Copies of her books will be available for purchasing at the event.

Other works by Brooks include two nonfiction books, “Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women” and “Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal’s Journey From Down Under to All Over,” plus her first novel, “Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague,” which was an international best-seller.

To prepare the community for Brooks’ visit to Tulsa, the Friends of the Tulsa City-County Libraries group is offering a review of Brooks’ works as a part of its popular Books Sandwiched In series from 12:10 to 12:50 p.m. on Nov. 30 at Central Library in Aaronson Auditorium. Donna Farrior, a member of the Distinguished Author Selection Committee, will present “A Geraldine Brooks Sampler.”

Also, an exhibit showcasing Brooks’ life and writings will be on display through Dec. 6 on the second floor of Central Library.

The Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award consists of a $40,000 cash prize and an engraved crystal book. The award originated in 1985. Previous award winners are Michael Chabon, Thomas Keneally, Mark Helprin, John Grisham, Shelby Foote, Joyce Carol Oates, William Kennedy, William Manchester, Margaret Atwood, E.L. Doctorow, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Neil Simon, David McCullough, Ray Bradbury, Peter Matthiessen, Norman Mailer, Eudora Welty, John le Carré, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, John Updike, Larry McMurtry and Norman Cousins.

For more information about the Helmerich Award, visit www.helmerichaward.org or call 596-7977.

Oklahoma Magazine
November 2009
By Jackie Hill

A Puritan minister … a Wampanoag medicine man … Caleb’s Crossing, Geraldine Brooks’ next novel, will take readers on a riveting ride back to 17th-century Massachusetts when English settlers first encountered Native Americans.

"It will be just about written this time next year, but I am too superstitious to say anything more about it just yet," said Brooks, who will be in Tulsa Dec. 4 and 5 to accept the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2009 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award.

As a Helmerich award winner, Brooks said she is in awe to be included in such a distinguished circle of writers (i.e. John Grisham, David McCullough, Ray Bradbury, Eudora Welty, etc.)

The Tulsa Library Trust and Tulsa City-County Library are honoring Brooks with the Helmerich award for her major contribution to the field of literature and letters.

Brooks fell in the love with the written word when she was 8 years old, deciding then what she would be when she grew up.   
"I can date it precisely to a visit I made to see my dad at work," said Brooks. "He was a proofreader for a Sydney (Australia) newspaper. He took me down to the pressroom as the afternoon editions were rolling, and pulled one of the papers off the conveyor belt. I’ll never forget it – the paper was warm – literally ‘hot off the presses.’ I thought, ‘I’m the first one in this city to read this news,’ and from that moment I knew I wanted to grow up to write it."

Brooks’ childhood dream came to fruition first as a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, next as the Middle East bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and then the Journal’s United Nations correspondent.

The switch to fiction came much later for Brooks.

"I’d been a foreign correspondent for years and years, and written two nonfiction books (Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal‘s Journey From Down Under to All Over), but I really had no idea a novelist dwelt inside until my son was born, and I had to keep still in one place for the first time in a decade," said Brooks. "That’s when I started hearing voices from the past and wanting to tell their stories."

Her first story was the 2001 international best-seller Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague,the true story of the village of Eyam, Derbyshire, where villagers voluntarily quarantined themselves when bubonic plague struck in 1666.

Her second novel, March, a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women from the point of view of the girls’ absent father, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. Brooks’ most recent novel, People of the Book, traces the perilous journey of a rare illuminated Hebrew manuscript from Spain to the ruins of Sarajevo.

Brooks will receive the Helmerich award at a black-tie dinner on Dec. 4 and give a free public presentation on Dec. 5 at 10:30 a.m. at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue. Dinner tickets are $125. For more information about the award or to purchase tickets for the dinner, call 918-596-7897.