G&A: The Contest Blog

The finalists for the thirty-third annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, given in ten categories for books published in 2012, were announced today. 

The finalists in poetry are Louise Glück for Poems: 1962-2012 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Rowan Ricardo Phillips for The Ground: Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), D. A. Powell for Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys: Poems (Graywolf Press) Bin Ramke for Aerial (Omnidawn), and Cole Swensen for Gravesend (University of California Press).

The finalists in fiction are Jami Attenberg for The Middlesteins: A Novel (Grand Central Publishing), Michael Chabon for Telegraph Avenue (Harper), Ben Fountain for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Ecco), Lauren Groff for Arcadia (Voice/Hyperion), and Lydia Millet for Magnificence (Norton).

The finalists for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction are David Abrams for Fobbit (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic,Inc.), Kevin P. Keating for The Natural Order of Things (Aqueous Books), Lydia Netzer for Shine Shine Shine (St. Martin's Press), Maggie Shipstead for Seating Arrangements (Knopf), and Robin Sloan for Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Book Store: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

For embracing new electronic forms of narrative, novelist Margaret Atwood will receive the Times Innovator's Award. Atwood’s recent projects include writing a serialized e-book for Byliner and posting her work on the collaborative writing website Wattpad. A new award series hosted by Wattpad, the Attys, whose inaugural winners were recently announced, were named in Atwood’s honor.

The winners of the 2012 book prizes will be announced at an awards ceremony on April 19 at the University of Southern California. The ceremony is open to the public; tickets will be available in late March. For more information on the event, and for a list of finalists in the additional award categories of biography, current interest, graphic novel/comics, history, mystery/thriller, science and technology, and young adult literature, visit the L.A. Times Book Prizes website. 

The Poetry Society of America (PSA) has announced that poet Robert Bly will receive the 2013 Frost Medal, an award presented annually for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. 

The PSA’s most prestigious award, the Frost Medal was established in 1930. Originally called the “Gold Medal,” the award’s early recipients included Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Wallace Stevens, and Marianne Moore. In 1984, to pay tribute to Robert Frost's longstanding association with the organization, including his tenure as honorary president from 1940-1963, the award was renamed in his honor; subsequent winners have included Gwendolyn Brooks, Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, Sonia Sanchez, and in 2012, Marilyn Nelson. Winners receive a cash prize of $2,500. 

Born in western Minnesota in 1926, Robert Bly attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and later founded the literary magazine The Fifties (later The Sixties and The Seventies), which published poetry in translation. Bly published his first book of poetry, Silence in the Snowy Fields (Wesleyan), in 1962, and received a National Book Award in 1968 for The Light Around the Body (Harper & Row). He has since published over thirty books of poetry, translation, and essays, including most recently the poetry collection Talking Into the Ear of a Donkey (Norton, 2011). A forthcoming collection, Stealing Sugar from the Castle: the Selected Poems of Robert Bly, will be published in September by Norton. 

Bly will be honored, along with the twelve recipients of the annual PSA awards, at a ceremony on Friday, April 5, at the National Arts Club in New York City. Bly will also give a reading.

The Poetry Society of America, the nation's oldest poetry organization, was founded in 1910. Its mission is “to build a larger and more diverse audience for poetry, to encourage a deeper appreciation of the vitality and breadth of poetry in the cultural conversation, and to place poetry at the crossroads of American life.” For more information about the PSA and the annual awards, visit the website. 

The Oklahoma City-based Arcadia Magazine is currently accepting submissions for its inaugural short story contest. The winner will receive a prize of $1,000 and publication in Arcadia. The deadline for entry is February 15.

Fiction writers may submit a short story between 4,000 and 7,000 words, along with a $15 entry fee, via Submittable. There is no required criteria beyond the word limit; stories of any subject or style are eligible. Multiple entries are welcome, but must be submitted separately. All entries will be considered for publication. 

Founded in 2009, Arcadia is a print journal published twice yearly in the spring and fall that features the work of both emerging and established writers. In addition to the contest, the magazine accepts year-round submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as cultural criticism, drama, visual art, comics, music, craft essays, and everything in between—including letters, to be included in the new Epistolary feature on the journal's website. Whatever the form, the editors state on the site, “We want to see it, read it, hear it, and love it. If it kicks ass, we will find a way to publish it.” 

Visit the submissions page for complete guidelines. 

For more from the Arcadia editors, check out the September/October 2012 print issue of Poets & Writers Magazine for an article on how to submit to Arcadia. 

Barnes and Noble has announced the shortlist for its 2012 Discover Great New Writers Awards, which annually honor works of fiction and nonfiction by emerging writers published during the previous calendar year and featured in the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program. Of the six finalists, one winner in each genre will be receive $10,000.  

The finalists in fiction are Amanda Coplin for The Orchardist (HarperCollins), Eowyn Ivey for The Snow Child (Reagan Arthur Books), and Karen Thompson Walker for The Age of Miracles (Random House). The finalists in nonfiction are Katherine Boo for Behind the Beautiful Forevers (Random House), Kristen Iversen for Full Body Burden (Crown Publishers), and Cheryl Strayed for Wild (Knopf).

Established in 1990, the Discover program highlights books by debut or early-career writers whose work might otherwise be overlooked by the mainstream. This year’s selections were chosen from a list of fifty-three writers. 

A group of Barnes and Noble volunteers hand-picks Discover selections each year from a list of nominees, and a panel of judges in both genres selects the award finalists and winners. This year's fiction judges are Lan Samantha Chang, Alan Cheuse, and Karl Marlantes. The nonfiction judges are Susan Cheever, Wendy McClure, and Touré.

The winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 6. Second-place finalists will receive $5,000, and third-place finalists will receive $2,500. 

The 2011 Discover Great New Writers Award winner in fiction was Scott O'Connor for Untouchable, published by Tyrus Books; Michael Levy won in nonfiction for Kosher Chinese, published by Holt. 

Barnes and Noble accepts nominations for the Discover program four times yearly. For the Fall 2013 season, books published between August and October, 2013, may be submitted by April 4. Publishers may nominate books by debut authors or writers with fewer than three previously published books. Authors may not submit their own work. Works of literary fiction (including novels and short story collections) and literary nonfiction (including essay collections, memoirs, and other nonfiction works with a strong narrative) are eligible. Self-published or digital-only titles are not eligible. For more information and complete submission guidelines, visit the website.

Claremont Graduate University has announced the finalists for the 2013 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Given annually for a book published in the previous award year by a poet in midcareer, the Tufts Award is one of the most prestigious prizes given to an American poet. The winner receives $100,000.

The finalists are Marianne Boruch for The Book of Hours (Copper Canyon Press), Edward Haworth Hoeppner Blood Prism (Ohio State University Press), and Paisley Rekdal for Animal Eye (University of Pittsburgh Press).

Boruch is the author of eight previous collections, including most recently Grace, Fallen from (Wesleyan, 2008), and a memoir, The Glimpse Traveler (Break Away Books, 2011). She is a professor of creative writing and poetry at Purdue University. Hoeppner is the author of two previous collections, including Rain Through High Windows (New Issues, 2000). He directs the creative writing program at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Rekdal is the author of three previous collections, including most recently The Invention of the Kaleidoscope (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007). She is an associate professor of English at the University of Utah. 

Claremont also announced the finalists for the 2013 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, a prize of $10,000 given annually for a debut poetry collection. The finalists are Rebecca Morgan Frank for Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon Poetry), Francine J. Harris for Allegiance (Wayne State University Press), and Heidy Steidlmayer for Fowling Piece (Triquarterly Books).

This year's panel of judges for both awards includes Linda Gregerson, David Barber, Kate Gale, Ted Genoways, and Carl Phillips. Winners will be announced in March and recognized during a ceremony at Claremont Graduate University in April.

Timothy Donnelly of Brooklyn, New York, received the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for The Cloud Corporation (Wave Books). Katherine Larson received the Kate Tufts Discovery Award for Radial Symmetry (Yale University Press).

Authors, editors, and publishers may submit books for consideration for both the Kate and Kingsley Tufts Awards. For the 2014 awards, books published between September 1, 2012, and August 31, 2013, are eligible, and must be postmarked by September 15. Visit the website for more information and complete submission guidelines. 

The Loft Anthology: New England Poetry and Art is accepting submissions for its annual Loft Prize for Poetry until February 1. The award, which includes $1,000 and publication in the Loft Anthology, is given for poems about visual art, written by poets who reside in or are natives of New England.

Poets may submit up to two poems by e-mail with a $15 entry fee. Poems inspired by a piece of artwork from a New England museum are eligible. A list of museums is available on the Loft Anthology website; artwork can also be found online at the Athenaeum. Winners and finalists will be invited to read at an awards reception at the Providence Public Library in Rhode Island on June 6.

Poet Denise Duhamel, whose latest collection, Blowout, will be released by the University of Pittsburgh Press in February, will judge.

The Loft Anthology is published by the Cranston, Rhode Island-based Poetry Loft, a nonprofit literary arts organization that provides free poetry workshops in Rhode Island. The anthology publishes original work by both established and emerging poets in an effort, as stated on the website, to paint “an intimate portrait of the rich state of poetry in our region, informed by the distinct voices and souls of New Englanders. We humbly seek to inspire and disseminate the best poetry of New England.”

Copies of the 2012 anthology can be ordered through the Loft Anthology website, and are available for purchase at Brown Bookstore, Books on the Square, Symposium Books, and Cellar Books in Providence. For more information and complete submission guidelines, visit the website or send questions by e-mail to info@thepoetryloft.org.

The finalists for the 2013 Man Booker International Prize, which recognizes one fiction writer for a body of work, were announced today. Of the ten authors only three write in English, including American novelist Marilynne Robinson, who was first short-listed for the award in 2011. The winner, who will be announced in May, will receive sixty thousand British pounds. 

Representing nine different countries, the finalists were annouced this morning at the Jaipur Literature Festival. The list includes U R Ananthamurthy of India, Aharon Appelfeld of Israel, Lydia Davis of the United States, Intizar Husain of Pakistan, Yan Lianke of China, Marie NDiaye of France, Josip Novakovich of Canada, Marilynne Robinson of the United States, Vladimir Sorokin of Russia, and Peter Stamm of Switzerland. 

While many of this year's authors are relatively lesser known, Robinson, who teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is no stranger to literary prizes. Her debut novel, Housekeeping (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982) won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for best first novel and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction; what is perhaps her most widely known novel, Gilead (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; and her most recent novel, Home, also published by FSG, received the 2009 Orange Prize. 

The current panel of judges, which has grown in size from previous years, includes chairman Christopher Ricks, critic and translator Tim Parks, critic Elif Batuman, and novelists Aminatta Forna and Yiyun Li. On the Man Booker International website, prize administrator Fiammetta Rocco attributes the wide range of finalists to the expanded scope of judges, each who represents a different geographical focus. “Now that we have five judges, we have been able to read in far greater depth than ever before,” she says. “Fiction is now available in all sorts of forms and in translation in more countries. This list recognizes that and is the fruit of the judges' collective reading.”

The award is given every two years to a living author who has published original works of fiction in English, or whose books are widely available in translation. The finalists and winners are chosen solely by the judges; there is no application process. 

Past winners of the prize include American novelist Philip Roth, Canadian short story writer Alice Munro, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, and Albanian author Ismail Kadare, who won the inaugural prize in 2005. The winner of the 2013 prize, who may also choose a translator of their work to be awarded fifteen thousand pounds, will be announced on May 22 in London.