User:Sguthery/Boston Authors Club

The Boston Author Club is a American membership organization established as a place where authors particularly in the greater Boston area could meet. The club was founded in 1900. Each year the club awards the Julia Ward Howe prize to honor books by Boston authors that were published in the previous year.

History
The Boston Authors Club (BAC) was founded in 1900 by Mabel Loomis Todd, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, May Alden Ward, and Helen Winslow. The objective of the organization was to “… further literary purposes and to promote social intercourse among the authors of Boston and vicinity.” The first president of the organization was Julia Ward Howe.

Awards
The Julia Ward Howe prize was established in 1997 to honor notable books by Boston authors. The prize is presented to books in four categories: fiction, non-fiction, young readers, and poetry. The first prize was awarded to Igor Lukas for Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler published by Oxford University Press.

Notable Members
Over the years the BAC has counted among its membership many well-known writers, including Louise Chandler Moulton, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Isaac Asimov, Anne Sexton and Ellery Queen. Its members have also included people well known in other realms like the “father of public relations” Edward Bernays and sculptor Daniel Chester French. And some BAC members have been known by more eclectic appellations. In a published collection of essays about early members of the BAC, additional members listed included“Russell Gordon Carter, Gentleman and Scholar,” “William F. Boos, Noted Toxicologist,” and “Gamaliel Bradford, A profound student of human souls.”

Flagg, Mildred Buchanan. Notable Boston Authors: Members of the BAC, 1900-1966. Cambridge, MA: Dresser, Chapman & Grimes, 1965.