The Florida Writers Association (FWA) has announced that Robert Pearson of Celebration, won a prestigious Royal Palm Literary Award (RPLA).
Robert’s winning entry, In Black and White: Memories of Racism, Innocence, and Revelation, won the Gold award for Published Autobiography or Memoir in this year’s competition.
“I began writing a memoir of growing up in St. Louis to tell my two daughters what their dad’s childhood and teen years were like,” the author said. “The project took on a life of its own as I began to realize there was much about the 1950s and 1960s that shaped my life without me knowing it at the time. Sure, my story was about the magical moments most of us share during the innocence of our youth. But the memoir grew with each revision into a story about the concerns of the time: communism, polio, nuclear annihilation, and the fear of a black family moving next door in what was one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States. Equally important, the memoir became a story about the people and events that helped me begin to realize the injustice that prejudice leaves in its wake.”
The award was announced at FWA’s recent remote four-day annual conference. The annual competition, which received 549 submissions, was RPLA’s nineteenth. In all, the competition covered 28 adult genres and 5 Youth genres, with published and unpublished entries considered separately.
The Florida Writers Association established the Royal Palm Literary Awards to recognize excellence in its 1,800 members’ published and unpublished works while providing objective and constructive written assessments for entrants.
In Black and White is available for purchase on Amazon.com.