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TWENTY-NINTH ANNUAL

John T. AmberLITERARY AWARD

We’re proud to note that this year’s winner of the John T. Amber Literary Award is one of our longest-running contributors, the inestimable Jim Foral, for his 2009 Gun Digest feature, the “Age of Mobilubricant.”

Jim has a knack for uncovering forgotten chapters in our shooting heritage and reacquainting us with them with his witty, readable prose. How many of us knew that, in the age before jacketed bullets were perfected, serious marksmen typically dipped their bullets in a can of automotive grease? I didn’t, and perhaps you didn’t either. But I enjoyed discovering this bit of esoterica, as I suspect you did.

As its name implies, the John T. Amber Literary Award recognizes not only a writer’s knowledge but his ability to express it. We again note, with all regrets that may be necessary, that as a craft, gunwriting is a vanishing art. In this day of the blog, the flamer, the spammer and the un-moderated bulletin board, it’s easy to forget that the best gunwriters, the ones who have endured, not only know their subject but know how to entertain the reader. Jim Foral is one of these.

Jim is a humble man. When asked to provide us with a biography, he responded with the following:

A weakly credential man doesn’t embellish. Here ‘tis.

A once wider field of youthful passions has narrowed as I’ve gotten older. Some have slipped loose and are gone entirely, but the zeal for the history of the shooting sports hasn’t shifted. My stuff has now been printed in twenty different periodical and annual titles, but my greatest publishing satisfaction has come from being allowed an annual presence in Gun Digest, whose subtitle “The World’s Greatest Gun Book” is not just an uninspired cliche or a groundless boast.

I’ve always regarded its readers as my peers, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute. My bride Kathy and I live in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I work in the commercial floor covering field, and bowfish - another passion - more than any man should be allowed.”

Thanks, Jim. And we hope you will honor us with your contributions for years to come.

Dan Shideler

Editor

Gun Digest

Jim Foral