This is so heartbreaking. I can't even imagine how awful this has all been for Lauren and for the other nominees. The NBA should have kept it on the list and not said anything, or admitted their mistake and taken action and thought of donating to the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Lauren shouldn't have had to withdraw, especially given their reason. The integrity of the award is in question if the people giving the award don't have integrity. That said, it has been a prestigious award in the past. I hope they find a way to fix their nomination problems after apologizing to Lauren, Franny, and the other authors that were nominated.
One of the things that's been bothering me all day (since I read the PW article) is this quote:
"Augenbraum called the need to remove Shine “unfortunate. We regret it very much.” But he reiterated what Myracle said in her statement of the need to uphold the intention of the judges. “The integrity of the awards is paramount,” Augenbraum said. He emphasized that none of what happened was Myracle’s fault. “She’s been very gracious about it,” he said."
He says she's been gracious and none of it is her fault, but he doesn't say he's sorry or take responsibility for it (if you read Libba's wonderful blog post about this, you'll learn of the part that Augenbraum played in all of this). Maybe he apologized somewhere else, but if so, I haven't seen it.
Libba's blog post really says it all much better than I can.