Tennis Players as Works of Art Named One of Eight Outstanding Books of the Year

Hi everyone,

Happy to announce that Tennis Players as Works of Art was chosen as one of eight Outstanding Books of the Year for the 29th annual IPPY Awards. IPPY is short for Independent Publisher’s Book Awards. Tennis Players as Works of Art won the award for its Original Concept. Last year there were over 5,000 entries. Here is a link to the 2025 IPPY award winners.

Please find below a little more about the IPPY awards. All the text below is taken directly from Wikipedia.

Outstanding Book of the Year

In 2010, the IPPYs introduced additional “Outstanding Book of the Year” awards. Every IPPY submission is considered for an Outstanding Book award, regardless of category. The outstanding medalists are chosen for exemplifying ‘daring spirit’ with a book that is ‘the most heartfelt, unique, outspoken and experimental among all entries.’^[7] In 2020, there were 11 Outstanding Books in eight categories:

• Most Original Concept
• Best Book Arts Craftsmanship
• Most Outstanding Design
• Most Likely to Save the Planet
• Independent Spirit Award
• Independent Voice Award
• Freedom Fighter
• Peacemaker

Notable Outstanding Books of the Year include Peter Kalmus’ Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution, which was named 2018’s Most Likely to Save the Planet, as well as Warren Lehrer’s A Life in Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley, 2014’s Most Original Concept.

Recipients

Books by IPPY winners in 2016, 2017 and 2018 were published by university presses including Princeton, Stanford,^[8] Yale, Wisconsin, Iowa, and other major university presses. Among the fiction gold medalists was Elena Ferrante‘s The Story of the Lost Child, originally published in Italy and issued in English by Europa.

Previous winners in fiction categories include the small presses like Milkweed, Coffee House, Graywolf, The Other Press, McPherson, Europa, and McSweeney’s. IPPY Gold Medal winner Lord of Misrule also won the National Book Award and The Patience Stone also won France’s Prix Goncourt for its French edition. David Eggers won a 2003 Outstanding Book of the Year for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.^[9] Margaret Atwood won in 2003 for Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. Juan Felipe Herrera, the United States Poet Laureate, won an IPPY gold medal in 2005 for Featherless (Desplumado). Randal Graham won in 2018 the IPPY gold medal in fantasy fiction for Beforelife.^[10] David Pietrusza won the 2023 IPPY Gold Medal for US History.

Check out my latest book, Tennis Players as Works of Art, now available on Amazon. Called “madly ambitious” and named one its 5 featured books of 2024 in the category of Art/Imagination/Creativity by Publisher’s Weekly Booklife, Tennis Players as Works of Art has also been named “One of the Best Books we Read in 2024” (Independent Book Review), “Book of the Year” (Inside Tennis Magazine), and Outstanding Book of the Year for its Original Concept by Independent Publisher’s Book Awards.

Happy to announce that this blog is listed as one of Feedspot’s 90 Best Tennis Blogs and Websites of 2025