The Great Lakes Colleges Association announced that Goldie Goldbloom has won the 2011 GLCA New Writers Award for her novel, Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders, published by New Issues Poetry and Prose. GLCA winners are invited to visit GLCA member colleges to give readings and meet and talk with students and faculty about writing.

GLCA judges had this to say about Goldbloom’s work: This novel includes stunning descriptions of place; it is interestingly grounded in the historical billeting of Italian soldiers in the Australian outback during the Second World War. Its characters are both quirky and well-grounded, and their many eccentricities make the novel both distinctive and compelling. The author draws the reader in part by her careful attention to language—its lushness in contrast with the harshness of the landscape.
Goldbloom’s novel also won the 2008 AWP Prize for the Novel.