Two win the local literary award

Local authors Robin Black and Stephen Fried on Wednesday will be awarded the Athenaeum of Philadelphia's annual literary award at a literary shindig, with discussion and reception, at the Athenaeum's historic building on Washington Square.

Black, 49, wins for her short-story collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This (Random House).

Fried, 53, who lives in Bella Vista with his wife, author Diane Ayres, wins for Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West, a narrative history of Fred Harvey's massive chain of restaurants and hotels that dominated in the American West and Southwest from the 1870s through the 1940s.

The chain's cadre of waitresses were immortalized in the 1946 Judy Garland vehicle The Harvey Girls.

Award-committee chairperson Cordelia Frances Biddle said the Athenaeum's award was founded in 1950 to recognize local writers. To be considered for competition, "it has only one criterion: Writers must live within 30 miles of City Hall."

Biddle said Black and Fried "represent the diversity of the writers living in Philadelphia. . . . Stephen Fried's book is really mythic in scope. It tells the story of the changing culture of the West and of America."

Black's book, on the other hand, "is very tight and emotionally very intense. It's like a little jewel," she said.

Fried, whose books include Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia, a biography of Philly model Gia Carangi, said the Athenaeum Award, which was founded in 1950, is the last great Philadelphia literary institution that still exists.

"It's funny, though," he added, "this is my fifth book, and it's the only one that has no ties to Philly."

Black, who now lives in Lower Merion, said the stories in her collection, composed between 2001 and 2009, "are all about families . . . at points of crisis."

She said the award finally makes her feel she belongs in Philadelphia. "I was really happy because I've been here for 23 years, but I still feel like a newcomer," she said.

"I feel I've been allowed to be [counted] as a local."