In May 2019 author aj Melnick missed the signing for her book, ‘They Changed the World: People of the Manhattan Project’, due to illness. Pajarito Press publishers Nancy Bartlit and Mark Rayburn signed books for her at the Bradbury Science Museum. The book just won a Silver Award in a national competition. Photo by Bonnie Gordon/ladailypost.com
By NANCY BARTLIT
Pajarito Press LLC
We are excited to let you know that aj Melnick’s book, They Changed the World: People of the Manhattan Project—redesigned and published last year by Pajarito Press LLC (owners, Nancy Bartlit and Mark Rayburn)—is a Silver Award winner in the History Category of the 32nd Annual Independent Book Publishers Association’s (IBPA) national book awards competition.
The IBPA announced the news online Thursday night, May 7, 2020, in lieu of live in-person announcements at the national convention.
The yearly contest is the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, which includes fifty-five categories recognizing excellence in book editorial and design. This award is regarded as one of the highest national honors for independent publishers. Around 1,700 books were submitted in 2020 and the finalists were announced per category.
Melnick was one of Pajarito Press’ first authors. She brought to life the stories of the people living and working in the shadow of the Jemez Mountains in her book, They Changed the World, Through portraits taken 60 years hence, she invites you into the homes of these first scientific workers, their spouses, the engineers, the secretaries, and the housekeepers working in Los Alamos (the secret city), in the 1940s. Our objective was to render an exciting presentation of black and white portraits. Within aj’s legacy are these beautiful biographies of those who changed the world. A number of these portraits can be viewed in the history corridor at the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos.
Mark Rayburn writes: “The Pajarito Press story began when a friend asked for my help, as art director, to redesign, rewrite, and reprint her book: Silent Voices of World War II. I said, ‘yes,’ and this talented historian/author/lecturer, Nancy Bartlit, and I became kindred spirits on a quest. When word got around that we were publishing a book, the calls started coming in and that’s when we decided we needed to establish Pajarito Press.”
This honor will mean national publicity as it will bring attention to Los Alamos, it’s role in World War II, and the people who changed the world. Maybe sometime this summer we’ll have a party to celebrate!
Following aj Melnick’s book, we’ve added three more titles to our stable, The War Years 1943–1946: The Battle of the Bulge in Person, A Tale Told to Douglas Weiss by Stephen Stoddard; Regulatory Engineering: Prospectus and Primer, by John Bartlit, PhD; and a most amazing book of historic recipes by Liddie Martinez, The Chile Line: Historic Northern New Mexican Recipes, most of them passed down through her family over the last 400 years!
Pajarito Press LLC is telling the local stories of New Mexico, from the scientific to environmental to cultural.
To learn more information about the 55 IBPA winners, go to www.ibpa-online.org. The book is available at both the Los Alamos History Museum bookstore and the Bradbury Science Museum Association’s Gadgets Store, or online at www.pajaritopress.com.
