Coffee-table book on H’wood celebs wins at National A&E Journalism Awards

Ruben Nepales holding his award-winning book

It was great news that landed in my inbox just before the clock struck midnight on Feb. 18. In it, Fil-Am HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association) member Ruben V. Nepales happily announced: “Good news about our book! I won three prizes in the 14th National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards held tonight!”

With “our book,” Ruben meant his second book “Through a Writer’s Lens,” the gorgeous 254-page visual tome featuring quotable quotes and photos of celebrities he himself had taken mostly during his time as Inquirer Entertainment’s Hollywood correspondent.

For the book, I wrote a foreword explaining why it’s a must-have for bookworms and collectors—an appraisal that I now share with the National A&E Journalism Awards, where “Through a Writer’s Lens” won first place in the Non-Fiction Book category.

The judges call “Through a Writer’s Lens” an “impressive coffee-table book. Beautiful, informative and trivia fun from the first page to the last.”

Ruben also won third prizes in two other categories.

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For her part, Ruben’s wife Janet placed third, just behind Variety’s Janet Woojeong Lee and Tim Gray, in the Celebrity News or Feature category for her piece on Oliver Stone.

Ruben told me that the awards show, which includes finalists from New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, is usually held at the Biltmore Hotel. But this year, due to the pandemic, the awards presentation was done online.

“So I watched the show in my T-shirt and pajama pants,” he shared. “Beats being in a stiff suit and tie in a hotel ballroom. And Janet and I celebrated with champagne, straight from our fridge.”