The Center for the Book, and the Michigan Library Association present the Michigan Author Award annually to recognize a Michigan author for their literary merit. The award is based on an outstanding published body of work, which can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry or play scripts. The Thunder Bay Literary Conference began the award in 1992 and it has since become an important part of the Michigan literary landscape.

Gary Schmidt, the 2011 winner, is the 20th author selected for the award.

Gary Schmidt is among the select group of children's authors who have won prestigious Newbery Award Honors from the American Library Association. His novel Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy was both a Newbery Honor Book and a Printz Honor Book in 2005 and three years later he received yet another Newbery Honor Book designation for The Wednesday War.

Booklist notes that Schmidt "makes the implausible believable and the everyday momentous" in its review of The Wednesday Wars. In Kirkus Reviews' look at Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, a book loosely based on an historical event, the reviewer says "Schmidt takes his time with his tale, spinning gloriously figurative language that brilliantly evokes both place and emotion."

2011 Michigan Author Award Press Release

Previous Michigan Author Award Winners