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Top shelf: Authors get Eagle awards at Park Slope library

Top shelf: Authors get Eagle awards at Park Slope library
Photo by Stefano Giovannini

Book ’em!

New York book lovers gobbled up fine hors d’oeuvres and boogied to fresh tunes at the Park Slope branch of the Brooklyn Public Library on Oct. 21, where two authors were awarded the Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize for distinguished works of fiction and non-fiction.

Author Mary E. Buser gasped as she was announced the recipient of this year’s prize in the non-fiction category for “Lockdown on Rikers,” a first-person account of her time spent as a mental health professional at the notorious jail complex.

“I’m speechless. I can’t believe that I’m in this magnificent library, accepting an award that is so special,” Buser said.

The library would also award novelist Idra Novey for her tale “Ways to Disappear,” a fictional account of an American interpreter’s efforts to solve the disappearance of a Brazilian writer.

An avid Park Slope Library patron, Novey was doubly honored to be receiving the prize at her home away from home, she said.

Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505.
Night owls: From left, Cheryl Elder, Emily Ashton, Chelsea O’Shea, and Cheneir Rivers partied it up at the bash.
Photo by Stefano Giovannini