On Independence Day, winners were unveiled for the 2016 Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize (a reconfigured and expanded version of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Book Award), which celebrate books "Southern bookstores were most passionate about, and inspired the most 'you've got to read this' moments and 'hand sell' moments in stores across the South." The inaugural Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize winners are:
The Great Santini Fiction Prize: My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh (Putnam)
The Prince of Tides Literary Prize: Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash (Ecco)
The Beach Music Mystery Prize: Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich (Putnam)
The Lords of Discipline Thriller Prize: The Bone Tree by Greg Isles (Morrow)
The Pat Conroy Cookbook Prize: Soul Food Love by Alice Randall (Clarkson Potter)
The Death of Santini Nonfiction Prize: Dispatches from Pluto by Richard Grant (S&S)
The Water Is Wide History & Life Stories Prize: Jacksonland by Steve Inskeep (Penguin)
Poppy's Pants Young Adult Prize: Mosquitoland by David Arnold (Viking Books for Young Readers)
Poppy's Pants Youngster's Prize Winner: Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty (Disney-Hyperion)