The Minnesota Book Awards has a new home for the April 28, 2020, ceremony, Friends of the St. Paul Public Library announced Thursday.

The 32nd annual salute to the state’s best authors, artists and publishers will be at the Ordway Concert Hall after being held for the past several years at the InterContinental Hotel a few blocks away.

Friends president Beth Burns said, in a prepared release, “the move brings us into closer alignment with Minnesota’s arts and culture community by partnering with one of our premiere arts destinations, the Ordway.”

The ceremony has traveled around the Twin Cities since it began in 1988 as part of the Minnesota Festival of the Book, held at colleges, bookstores, hotels; the World Theater (now the Fitzgerald), Minnesota History Center and the Union Depot in St. Paul, and the Minneapolis Woman’s Club.

Moving the ceremony to the Ordway will change the tenor of the evening from an event where audience members ate hors d’oeuvres seated at round tables covered with white cloths, to theater seating where the audience is facing the stage.

The Friends say this change comes out of a recently completed strategic planning process during which the organization committed to more fully practicing equity and inclusion in its work. The new space will allow the Friends to broaden the seating capacity and partner with writing programs and literary organizations to offer free tickets to emerging writers, as well as less expensive tickets to all attendees. (Ticket prices, which in the past have been around $40-$60, will be announced later.)

Another change announced Thursday is that the Friends will offer a modest stipend to the 54 judges who previously have been volunteers. And the Moving Words program, which brings Minnesota Book Awards winners to libraries in every region of the state, will expand to schools, thanks to increased legislative funding.