Sunday in the Hartford Public Library, two local authors, Preston’s Margaret Gibson and Ledyard’s Winsome Hudson-Bing, were selected as winners at the 2022 Connecticut Book Awards ceremony.

Gibson was honored in the poetry category for her collection “The Glass Globe.” The book, out from LSU Press, is the last in a trilogy that deals with the illness and death of Gibson’s late husband, David McKain, from Alzheimer’s Disease. Like the first two titles in the trilogy, “The Broken Cup” and “Not Hearing the Wood Thrush,” “The Glass Globe” explores grief and love – with an expanded concern for the planet during climate upheaval.

Winsome Hudson-Bing’s “Soul Food Sunday” was chosen as best fictional picture book for young readers. In “Soul Food Sunday,” a grandmother teaches her grandson to cook the family meal in a celebration of food, traditions, and gathering at the table. The book was published by Abrams and illustrated by C.J. Esperanza.

In an email, Gibson, who served as Connecticut Poet Laureate from 2019-22, says, “(‘The Glass Globe’) is very dear to me and so I'm doubly pleased. In fact, after I sign off this email, I just may do a little dance right here in my study.”

In 2008, Gibson won the Connecticut Book Award in Poetry for “One Body.”

Other winners Sunday were “Squirrel Hill” by Mark Oppeheimer (nonfiction); “Goliath” by Tochi Onyebuchi (fiction); “Walrus Song” by Janet Lawler (picture book nonfiction); “Fairy Tale Science” by Sarah Albee (middle grade nonfiction), “To Tell You the Truth” by Beth Vrabel (middle grade fiction); and “The Secret Life of Kitty Granger” by G.D. Falksen (young adult fiction). Emily Layden’s “All Girls” won the Bruce Fraser “Spirit of Connecticut” honorable mention award.

The program is sponsored by the Connecticut Center for the Book.