
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 27, 1993                   TAG: 9306270179
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Mike Mayo, Book page editor
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

PATTERSON WINS A SEQUOYAH; SONIAT A POETRY FINALIST

In one of those curious little bits of synchronicity that happen every so often, writers with local connecitons have been receiving honors and attention farther west.

Nancy Ruth Patterson's second novel for children, The Shiniest Rock of All (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991), has been selected for the Sequoyah Children's Book Award Masterlist for 1993-94. The Sequoyah Children's Book Award is sponsored by the Oklahoma Library Association and was created in 1959 for the purpose of encouraging the children of Oklahoma in grades three through six to read books of literary merit. Over fifty thousand children participate each year by voting for their favorite book on the Masterlist. Patterson is Director of CITY School, a downtown school with advance classes in the humanities. She is also Director of Writing Programs for Roanoke City Schools.

Katherine Soniat of Blacksburg is a finalist in the Missouri Review Editors' Prize contest for poetry. Tom Whalen, of New Orleans by way of the Hollins College writing program, won the essay competition for "The Spectral University," about his college days at the University of Arkansas in the late 1960s. Kudos to all of them.

by CNB