Archive January 2009

The National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its 2008 awards at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York City on Saturday night. The winners in each category—poetry, fiction, nonfiction, autobiography, criticism, and biography—will be named on March 12 at an awards ceremony at the New School.

The name Cynthia Lowen may ring a bell with those readers of our Recent Winners section. Lowen has won the “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize and the Inkwell Poetry Competition, among other awards, and was recently a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Since she’s met with continued success, we thought we’d ask her about her experience entering writing contests.

Julie Lindsey and Larry Dark recently announced the finalists for the Story Prize, and you have to hand it to them: They picked a pretty eclectic group. Lindsey, who founded the Story Prize in 2005, and Dark, the director of the annual award honoring short story collections, chose Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno, and Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff as the final three from among seventy-three story collections.

For those writers who don’t mind roughing it, imagine this: A week of nothing but writing, reading, and staring at the sea from a shack nestled in the dunes of the Cape Cod National Seashore, plus $500 to spend on supplies in the nearby artsy village of Provincetown, Massachusetts, home to the Fine Arts Work Center and galleries galore.

Finalists Chosen for National Book Critics Circle Awards

A Frequent Winner's Advice

The Story Prize Finalists

The Dune Shacks