Stephen King, Al Gore among Quills nominees

NEW YORK – Stephen King, Doris Kearns Goodwin and former Vice President Al Gore were among the nominees announced Tuesday for the second annual Quills Awards – people’s choice prizes trying to catch on with the public.

Caroline Kennedy will receive a Platinum Quill Award honoring her “commitment to providing support for education and literacy in New York.” The Quills will also acknowledge the 50th anniversary of “Profiles in Courage,” for which her father, then Sen.-John F. Kennedy, received the Pulitzer Prize.

The awards will be handed out at an Oct. 10 ceremony, hosted by NBC anchor Lester Holt, at the American Museum of Natural History. Admission will range from $1,000 for a single ticket to $75,000 for a “Platinum Sponsorship.”

Starting Tuesday and through Sept. 30, voters can make their picks online at www.quillsvote.com and at www.quills.msnbc.com.

King was nominated in the science fiction/fantasy/horror category for his novel, “The Cell.” Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals,” her biography of Abraham Lincoln, was cited in history/current events/politics, as was Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the companion to the documentary of the same name about global warming.

The Quills, billed as a combination of “populist sensibility” and “Hollywood-style glitz,” were started last year by NBC Universal Television Stations and Reed Business Information, which issues Variety and Publishers Weekly.

Ninety-five nominees in 19 categories, from general fiction to cooking, were chosen by thousands of booksellers and librarians and were required to meet one of several possible criteria, such as an appearance on the best seller list of Borders Group, Inc., or a starred review in Publishers Weekly.