2005 New Voices Award Winners

We are proud to announce that two Honor winners have been chosen for the Sixth Annual New Voices Award. They are Don Tate of Austin, Texas and Zetta Elliot of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Don Tate's story, It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Taught Himself to Draw (retitled on publication It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw), is a biography of a former slave who, with no artistic background, at age eighty-two became one of the most important outsider (self-trained) artists of the twentieth century. Don Tate is also the illustrator of two LEE & LOW titles: Black All Around and Summer Sun Risin'.

Zetta Elliot's Bird is a work of fiction about a young boy who tries to make sense of the world and his brother's drug addiction with the support of family, bird watching, and art. Zetta Elliot holds a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches African American literature at Louisiana State University.