Elizabeth Sherrill received the Kenneth N. Taylor Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018
Elizabeth Sherrill receives ECPA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. Pictured with Dwight Baker.
June 5, 2023 — In 2018, ECPA presented to Elizabeth the Kenneth N. Taylor Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her, and her late husband John’s, contributions to Christian publishing.
ECPA president and CEO Jeff Crosby recently reflected:
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Elizabeth Sherrill’s work, alongside that of her husband John and two of their friends as they formed Chosen Books in 1971, dramatically elevated the profile and the impact of Christian publishing throughout that decade and beyond. From the company’s first book by Corrie ten Boom to other major releases such as Charles Colson’s Born Again, David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade and Brother Andrew’s God’s Smuggler, Elizabeth’s gifts as a manuscript stylist, editor, and publisher were enormous. She knew how to tell a story with power and with an economy of words, and the books she touched were brought to a mass market audience.
I was privileged to chair ECPA’s recognition committee the year it awarded her and, posthumously, John Sherrill with our Kenneth N. Taylor Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. And as a bookseller in the 1980s, I marveled at the way the books she touched and inspired readers toward belief.
Elizabeth Sherrill passed away Saturday, May 20, 2023. Her husband, John, passed away in 2017. Elizabeth produced more than 30 books and 2,000 articles throughout her lifetime.
