The American Society for Indexing is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Indexing Awards. In the Trade category, Jan Wright won for Shift Happens: A Book about Keyboards, published by Aresluna, LLC. In the Scholarly/Technical category, Enid Zafran won for Looking for Other Worlds: Black Feminism and Haitian Fiction, published by University of Virginia Press.
Trade—Shift Happens
Marcin Wichary, author of Shift Happens, said “The indexer—Jan Wright—did a fantastic job, slicing through the book and seeing it in ways I never did, and keeping the index lightweight when it could be, but serious in other places that deserved it. I didn’t know an index could have a personality. This one does, and it matches the book really well.”
“It’s not just a great access tool, it’s actually fun to read through on its own, and I feel like it does a great job reflecting the needs and probably the mindset of its author and its readers,” one judge said of the index in Shift Happens.
Jan Wright voiced her enthusiasm for the book. “It was the most wonderful project to work on, and I loved working with the author and the editor. The author was so detail-oriented and really wanted the index to be typeset just right. That’s so rare…”
Scholarly/Technical—Looking for Other Worlds
Enid Zafran said Looking for Other Worlds is literary criticism, “which is a difficult category to index.” She added, the book dealt with works by multiple authors and comprised “complicated ideas like multiple types of feminism and ethics, as well as plot issues.” She said she is pleased with “the way the index displays how to meet such challenges and still remains accessible to users searching for an idea or specific title.”
Judges commented that the book’s many diacritics and non-English names were handled well.
Regine Jean-Charles, author of Looking for Other Worlds, said “Enid Zafran’s index is a powerful example of how an ethic of care can be present in the form, process, and product of writing. In creating this index, she carefully sifted through multiple languages (French, Kreyòl and English), contexts, novels, themes, time periods, and areas of study (Haitian Studies, Black feminism, literary studies, African diasporic women’s writing). Zafran’s ability to seamlessly weave these different pieces together to create a rich and cohesive index is borne from her decades long career in the field of indexing as well as an abiding ethic of care that she chooses to bring to the work. Working with her deepened my appreciation for the art and the rigor of indexing.”
At the time of the original post, the University of Virginia Press was not available for comment, due to the holidays. Please see their comments below. Look for more details in a future issue of Key Words.
“We are delighted to hear that Enid Zafran has been awarded this prestigious award by the American Society for Indexing. Enid has long been one of our go-to indexers—her indexes are always carefully thought out, structured, and balanced, and they’re reliably error free. Well-constructed indexes are key tools for our readers, both in helping them find the information they’re seeking and in helping highlight particular concepts or themes readers might not otherwise have considered.” —Ellen Satrom, Managing Editor | Editorial, Design, and Production Director, University of Virginia Press
The two winners will each receive $500. More information on the awards and judging process is available here.