Goldbloom wins American gold

Fremantle Press author Goldie Goldbloom has picked up another award in the United States for her first novel The Paperbark Shoe (known in the States as Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders).

The novel won the gold medal in the literary fiction category of ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards. This is the third North American award for Goldbloom’s novel about Italian POWs in the Australian outback during World War II.

Speaking from her home in Chicago where she is busy publicising The Paperbark Shoe for Picador US, Goldbloom said she was surprised but pleased.

‘It makes me happy that there is recognition for literary fiction in this time when it’s harder and harder for bookshops to exist,’ said Goldbloom.

Fremantle Press Publisher Georgia Richter said Goldbloom was an author of huge talent and an important Australian voice.

‘_The Paperbark Shoe_ was an extraordinary debut novel, and her range and diversity are only confirmed for me in her latest book, a collection of stories called You Lose These,’ said Richter.

The Paperbark Shoe won the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Novel Award and the GLCA New Writers Award for Fiction in the United States.

Goldbloom is an expatriate Australian living in Chicago. Her short story collection, You Lose These + Other Stories (Fremantle Press), was released in June 2011.

The Paperbark Shoe is available in all good bookstores and at www.fremantlepress.com.au

About the Award
ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards were established to bring increased attention to librarians and booksellers of the literary and graphic achievements of independent publishers and their authors. The winners are chosen by readers, librarians and booksellers based on editorial excellence, professional production, originality of the narrative, author credentials relative to the book, and the value the book adds to its genre. ForeWord is the only review trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent houses.