Collaborations among people, literacy, and literature are honored in the 2024 Contributions to Literacy in Alaska (CLIA) Awards from the Alaska Center for the Book, announced June 24.
Honorees are the Reading Mentors program of the Talkeetna Friends of the Library; the Anchorage Daily News; and authors Ann Fienup-Riordan, Alice Rearden, and Marie Meade.
     The CLIA awards are presented annually by Alaska Center for the Book, Alaska’s liaison with the U.S. Library of Congress Center for the Book. Since 1993, the awards have been presented to more than 100 people and institutions making a significant contribution in literacy, the literary arts, or the preservation of the written or spoken word.
The Reading Mentors Program is supported by Friends of the Talkeetna Library, in collaboration with Talkeetna Elementary School, area homeschool families, Sunshine Transit, Upper Susitna Food Pantry, and Talkeetna Library. Teachers identify students who could benefit from additional reading practice. They engage in one-on-one reading sessions with community volunteers after school. During each biannual 7-8 week session, 15 students are transported to Talkeetna Public Library by Sunshine Transit, enjoy a snack provided by the Food Pantry, spend an hour a week reading to and with a mentor, and choose a new book or two to keep. Now in its sixth year, the multigenerational program provides a comfortable environment for children to gain confidence and encouragement in reading.
     Authors Ann Fienup-Riordan, Alice Rearden, and Marie Meade form another collaboration meriting CLIA awards. The three are tradition-bearers, educators, authors, and translators sharing Yupik culture, tradition, and language. Working sometimes separately, but often with one another, their work is so interwoven that the CLIA awards committee chose to recognize all three, rather than one. Fienup-Riordan, who came to Alaska in 1973, is a cultural anthropologist who has written or edited more than 20 books. Meade, born in Nunapiciaq, is a researcher and translator who also teaches Yup’ik dance, language and traditions at University of Alaska-Anchorage. Rearden, originally from Napakiak, has worked as primary translator and oral historian for the Calista Elders Council and the Alaska Council for Exceptional Children. Some of their joint works are Wise Words of the Yup’ik People: We Talk to You because We Love You; Yup’ik Words of Wisdom: The Way We Genuinely Live: Masterworks of Yup’ik Science and Survival; Time of Warring; and most recently, All the Land’s Surface is Medicine: Edible and Medicinal Plants of Southwest Alaska.
     Anchorage Daily News was awarded a CLIA for stepping beyond the usual mission of print and on-line journalism, promoting literacy and literary arts in Alaska. In addition to news coverage, the paper has co-sponsored the statewide UAA/Anchorage Daily News Creative Writing Contest for 41 years. Two past winners have become State Writer Laureates, and several have become published authors. The paper also hosts the annual Alaska State Spelling Bee, Alaska’s Educator of the Year Program, and provides newspapers and curriculum to students through its Newspapers in the Schools. The paper also provides weekly reviews of books by Alaskans to recognize the efforts of writers across the state.