Presbyterian Writers Guild selects Robert John Andrews for prize

By Jerry L. Van Marter

The Presbyterian Writers Guild has selected Robert John Andrews, a pastor in Danville, Pennsylvania, to receive this year’s Presbyterian Publishing Corporation (PPC) First Book Award for his novel set during the Civil War, Nathaniel’s Call. The award honors the best first book by a Presbyterian author published during the calendar years of 2012–2013.

Andrews’ book, self-published in 2012, was selected from among 17 entries in a variety of genres to receive the biennial award. The PPC First Book Award winner is recognized at the Presbyterian Writers Guild’s General Assembly luncheon, which this year will be Thursday, June 19, in Detroit.

Announcing the award, Jane Hines of Nashville, retired director of communications for the Synod of Living Waters and chair of the PPC First Book Award Committee, said, “Several genres are represented in the 17 books we received (teen science fiction, memoirs, poetry, young adult fiction, novels, journals, dissertation re-writes). We were just looking for the best writing in any category and found it in Nathaniel’s Call.”

Andrews’ novel is told from the point of view of a Presbyterian chaplain and a physician attached to a Pennsylvania regiment during the Civil War. “From the first page to the last page,” Hines said, “we were captivated by the vivid descriptions, the characterizations, the historical research, the love stories, the flow of words.

“As a Nashville-based committee comprised of Southerners,” Hines added, “we don’t think it will be a best-seller in Vicksburg and Richmond, but we see Nathaniel’s Call as a splendid example of the art of writing.”

Andrews has been the pastor of Grove Presbyterian Church in Danville since 1989. He has theology degrees from Princeton and Pittsburgh Theological Seminaries and was ordained in 1978. He and his wife, Elaine, have three children. He has been moderator of Northumberland Presbytery and writes a weekly column for the Danville News.

Other notable entries in the Presbyterian Writers Guild’s PPC First Book Award competition:

• Second place: Tuesday’s Muse, a book of poetry illustrated with black-and-white photographs, written by J. Todd Jenkins, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Fayetteville, Tennessee, self-published in 2013.
• Third place (tie): Something Greater: Culture, Family and Community as Living Story, by Jeanne Choy Tate, published by Pickwick Publications in 2013; and Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land, by Ruth Everhart, published by Wm. B. Eerdmans in 2012.
• Fourth place (tie): Take My Hand, a Theological Memoir, by Andrew Taylor-Troutman, published by Resource Publications in 2012; and Learning from My Father, by David Lawther Johnson, published by Wm.B. Eerdmans in 2012.
• Honorable mention: Matthew A. Rich for A Week from Next Tuesday, published in 2013 by Wipf and Stock; Neal D. Presa for Here I Am, Lord, Send Me: Ritual and Narrative for a Theology of Presbyterial Ordination in the Reformed Tradition,published in 2012 by Wipf and Stock; and MaryAnn McKibben Dana for Sabbath in the Suburbs, published in 2012 by Chalice Press.

All those who entered the First Book Award competition will be given a chance to stand and be recognized at the Presbyterian Writers Guild luncheon at General Assembly. Those who entered, and especially those who placed in the competition, are encouraged to bring a copy of their book to the luncheon.