Florida Book Awards winners include three St. Petersburg residents

The 2012 Florida Book Awards have been announced, and St. Petersburg can count three residents among the winners.

The annual awards, coordinated by the Florida State University Libraries and co-sponsored by 13 organizations, recognize "the best Florida literature and books about Florida" in nine categories.

This year, all three Tampa Bay area winners live in St. Petersburg. Eckerd College professor Tracy Crow won a bronze medal in general nonfiction for her memoir, Eyes Right: Confessions From a Woman Marine; bestselling novelist Dennis Lehane received the gold medal in general fiction for his novel about Prohibition-era Ybor City, Live by Night and Tampa Bay Times environmental reporter Craig Pittman won the silver in Florida nonfiction for The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal, and the World's Most Beautiful Orchid.

One book won two medals. Mary Anna Evans' Plunder, a thriller about an archaeologist struggling to deal with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and solve two murders, received the bronze for both general fiction and popular fiction. Evans lives in Gainesville.

Information about how the winners are selected is at floridabookawards.lib.fsu.edu. This year's gold, silver and bronze winners are:

Children's literature: Henry Cole, Unspoken; Adrian Fogelin, Summer on the Moon; Dianne Ochiltree and Kathleen Kemly, Molly, by Golly.

Florida nonfiction: Gilbert King, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America; Pittman, The Scent of Scandal; Larry Eugene Rivers, Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in 19th Century Florida.

General fiction: Lehane, Live by Night; Janis Owens, American Ghost; Evans, Plunder.

General nonfiction: Michael Grunwald, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era; William Link, Links: My Family in American History; Crow, Eyes Right.

Poetry: Campbell McGrath, In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys; Terri Witek, Exit Island; Lola Haskins, Grace to Leave.

Popular fiction: D.J. Niko, The Tenth Saint; Michael Lister, Blood Sacrifice; Evans, Plunder.

Visual arts: Lu Vickers and Bonnie Georgiadis, Weeki Wachee Mermaids; Robert Crawford and William Brueckheimer, The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantation; Gary Libby, Reflections II: Watercolors of Florida 1835-2000.

Young adult: Laura Lascarso, Counting Backwards; Carl Hiaasen, Chomp; Alex Finn, Bewitching.

Spanish language: No winners for 2012.