G&A: The Contest Blog

The Center for Fiction and the American Booksellers Association have announced the short list for the 2012 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. Of the seven finalists for the prize, the winner—to be announced in December—will receive $10,000.

The seven short-listed titles include: Absolution (Riverhead Books) by Patrick Flanery; Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ecco) by Ben Fountain; The Dog Stars (Knopf) by Peter Heller; Girlchild (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Tupelo Hassman; The Snow Child (Reagan Arthur Books) by Eowyn Ivey; Seating Arrangements (Knopf) by Maggie Shipstead; and Alif the Unseen (Grove/Atlantic) by G. Willow Wilson. Each of the finalists will receive $1,000.

Established in 2005 as the John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize, the Flaherty-Dunnan Prize is given annually for a debut novel published in the previous year. Author and Center for Fiction board member Nancy Dunnan, who has supported the award since 2010, renamed it for her father, the journalist Ray W. Flaherty. 

In order to help promote the seven short-listed titles, the New York City-based Center for Fiction announced a new partnership with the American Booksellers Association this past January. The ABA will select 450 United States bookstores to receive displays, posters, and other promotional materials for the seven books. Additionally, sixty-five independent booksellers from across the country were asked to serve as first-round readers for the 2012 prize.

“We believe that there are no better readers than the people who continue against all seeming odds to own and operate independent bookstores,” Center for Fiction executive director Noreen Tomassi said in a press release. Once the first round of readers recommended a long list, a panel of judges comprised of distinguished American writers then selected the seven finalists.

The winner will be announced at the Center for Fiction’s annual benefit and awards dinner on December 11 in New York City.

Past winners of the prize include The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead Books) by Junot Díaz; Lamb (Other Press) by Bonnie Nadzam; Matterhorn (Grove/Atlantic) by Karl Marlantes; Woodsburner (Nan A. Talese) by John Pipkin; The Good Thief (The Dial Press) by Hannah Tinti; and Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Viking) by Marisha Pessl.

Author Tim O’Brien has been awarded the 2012 Dayton Literary Peace Prize’s Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. O’Brien, a Vietnam veteran whose work often deals with war, and who is perhaps most well known for his short story collection The Things They Carried, will receive $10,000.

Established in 2006 and inspired by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize is given internationally for literature that promotes peace, social justice, and global understanding. In addition to two annual prizes given for a work of fiction and a work of nonfiction published in the previous year, the Richard C. Holbrooke Award—named for the United States diplomat who played an instrumental role in negotiating the Dayton Accords—is given annually for a body of work.

"The Dayton Literary Peace Prize promotes the cause of peace by helping people understand the ugly realities of war on a deep, personal level, which is exactly what I strive to do in my work," O'Brien said. "Over what has been a long career, this award means more to me than any other—by far."

Originally from Austin, Minnesota, O’Brien served in the United States Army in Vietnam for a year, and later worked as a national affairs reporter for the Washington Post. His first book was the 1973 memoir about his experiences at war, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. He received a National Book Award in 1979 for his novel about Vietnam, Going After Cacciato (Doubleday); his 1990 collection, The Things They Carried (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger; In the Lake of the Woods (Penguin, 1995) received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction. His most recent novel is July, July, published by Houghton Mifflin in 2002. The sixty-five-year-old O’Brien lives in central Texas and teaches writing in the MFA program at Texas State University in San Marcos.

Previous Peace Prize winners include Geraldine Brooks, Barbara Kingsolver, Studs Terkel, and Elie Wiesel. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Dayton, Ohio, on November 11.

In the following 2010 Art Works podcast from the National Endowment for the Arts and Public Radio Exchange, O’Brien discusses The Things They Carried on the twentieth anniversary of its release.

Willow Books is currently accepting submissions for its first annual Literature Awards. A prize of $2,000 will be given for a book-length work of literary prose, and a prize of $1,000 will be given for a full-length collection of poetry. The two winning manuscripts will be published in spring 2013 by Willow Books.

The Willow Books Literature Awards are given to United States writers from culturally diverse backgrounds. “Our mission is to develop, publish, and promote writers typically underrepresented in the market,” the press’s website states. Ten finalists will be announced on January 21, 2013, and the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony and reading in Chicago later in the spring. The remaining eight finalists will have selections of their work published in an e-book anthology. All finalists for the awards are expected to attend the ceremony and assist in future online publicity for the press.

Judges for the poetry prize include poets John Murillo, Ching-in Chen, and Naomi Ayala; judges for the prize in literary prose include fiction and nonfiction writers Pauline Kaldas, Latha Viswanathan, and Ana-Maurine Lara.

“We are excited about our new competition and the caliber of our judges,” says Randall Horton, editor of Willow Books. “We are also planning to host workshops during the awards weekend, so watch for updates.”

Poets may submit three copies of a collection between 50 and 125 pages, along with a $25 entry fee; prose writers may submit three copies of a novel, short story collection, memoir, or essay collection (totaling no more than 100,000 words), along with a $30 entry fee. The deadline for submissions is October 1. Submissions are accepted via postal mail only.

Willow Books, established in 2007 as an imprint of the Detroit-based Aquarius Books, publishes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Some of the press’s recent authors include Tara Betts, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Krista Franklin, and Tony Medina.

Willow also partners with the Cave Canem Foundation to publish the biennial Cave Canem Anthology, a collection of poetry by Cave Canem faculty and fellows.   

For the required entry form and complete submissions guidelines for the Literary Awards, and for more information about Willow Books, visit their website. 

The Women’s National Book Association has announced that novelist Ann Patchett has been selected to receive the 2012-2013 Women’s National Book Award. According to the Association’s website, the biennial award is given to “a living American woman who derives part or all of her income from books and allied arts, and who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation.”

Ann Patchett, whose most recent novel is State of Wonder (HarperCollins, 2011), is the bestselling author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the novel Bel Canto, which won both the PEN/Faulkner and Orange Prize in 2002. Patchett’s work has also garnered such accolades as the New York Times Notable Book of the Year, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and the BookSense Book of the Year Award; and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Vogue.

In 2011, Patchett and publishing veteran Karen Hayes opened Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore in Nashville, Tennessee, after the last remaining bookstores in the city had closed their doors. Patchett has since become a nationally recognized advocate for independent bookselling, and this year was named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.”

Formerly known as the Constance Lindsay Skinner Award (named for the prolific playwright, critic, editor, and author) the Women’s National Book Award has been given since 1940. International journalist and author Masha Hamilton received the award in 2010; previous recipients have included Pearl S. Buck, Barbara Bush, Blanche W. Knopf, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

In the video below, Ann Patchett discusses State of Wonder for the first installment of Forbes Magazine's ForbesWoman Book Club series.

The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) is currently accepting applications for the 2013 Wachtmeister Award. The biennial prize, which is offered in alternating genres, will be given this year to a poet.

The award includes a fully funded residency of up to thirty days at VCCA, a retreat for writers, visual artists, and composers located on a 450-acre estate at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, approximately sixty miles south of Charlottesville. The winner will also receive a $1,000 honorarium and travel reimbursement of up to $750. The total value of the award, which includes a private bedroom, private workspace, and three meals a day, is $7,150. 

Applicants for the Wachtmeister Award must have worked professionally for the previous fifteen years, and must have published at least two full-length poetry collections. Applicants should submit three copies of up to five poems (totaling no more than ten pages), the application form, and curriculum vitae, along with a brief biography and statement of purpose, by September 30. Poets who have not previously attended VCCA are eligible.

Originally called the VCCA Award for Excellence, the Wachtmeister Award is endowed by VCCA board member Linda Wachtmeister and is administered by the VCCA Fellows Council. The award is given to support writers, visual artists, and composers whose achievements in the arts are widely recognized.

Poet and fiction writer Ha Jin, whose most recent book is the short story collection A Good Fall (Pantheon, 2009), last received the Wachtmeister Award in writing in 2004. The author of six novels, four short story collections, and four books of poetry, Jin has received the National Book Award, a PEN/Faulkner Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Open year-round, the VCCA offers residencies of two weeks to two months and accommodates twenty-five artists at a time. Residents may also use the facilities of nearby Sweet Briar College. Since its founding in 1971 by writers Elizabeth Coles Langhorne and Nancy Hale, over 4,000 writers, artists, and composers have attended residencies at VCCA.

For an application form and complete guidelines, or for more information about residencies at VCCA, visit the website. 

The Canadian social reading website Wattpad has named its new poetry awards for author and literary icon Margaret Atwood. The first annual Attys, which include a grand prize of $1,000, will be given for a group of ten poems. Other prizes will include feedback sessions with Atwood and the chance to be a character in the Man Booker Prize-winning author’s next novel.

“I'm very honoured to have [the prize] named after me,” Atwood wrote in a message to entrants on the contest website. “Poetry is at the core of each language, and language itself is at the core of our humanity.”

Wattpad is a Toronto-based digital platform for writers and readers to share new creative work. According to its mission, Wattpad offers a “creative, welcoming, and completely free community to connect with readers from around the world. Writers can build an engaged fan base, share their work with a huge audience, and receive instant feedback on their stories.”

The contest, sponsored in part by the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, aims to further that mission by celebrating digital-first poetry, which may be read, shared, and even submitted from anywhere. “We anticipate that some entries will be written on mobile devices,” said Allen Lau, Wattpad’s cofounder. “We want to create an opportunity for poets to share their work and for audiences to discover the genre, [and we] are excited to see how the world connects over poetry.”

Atwood, who joined Wattpad's community of nine million writers and readers in June, has three new poems posted on the website. “May you enjoy composing your own poems, and enjoy reading the poems of others,” she wrote. “These are very ancient pleasures; by sharing in them, you are sharing in our own deep history.”

Poets should submit ten poems, each which demonstrates a different poetic form. Submissions will be accepted through the Wattpad website until October 31.

In the video below, Atwood discusses her creative process with the folks of Big Think.

The Chicago Tribune announced today that author Elie Wiesel has been awarded the 2012 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, is most widely known for his book Night, an autobiographical account of his experiences as a concentration camp prisoner during World War II, which was first published in France in 1958 and has since has been translated into more than thirty languages. He is the author over fifty books of fiction and nonfiction, and has received the United States Congressional Medal of Honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Nobel Peace Prize. 

"We are deeply honored to bestow the Chicago Tribune Literary Award upon Elie Wiesel, a man revered around the world as a living symbol of human rights," said Gerould Kern, editor of the Tribune. "Drawing upon his personal experiences as a Holocaust survivor, Mr. Wiesel's words have passionately and powerfully fought injustice and intolerance. He is a champion of the human spirit's capacity to overcome evil."

The Tribune also announced the 2012 recipients of the Heartland Prizes, which are given annually for works of fiction and nonfiction that "reinforce and perpetuate the values of Heartland America."

Novelist and short story writer Richard Ford won the prize in fiction for his novel Canada (Ecco, 2012), part of a series of novels that has garnered Ford both a Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Paul Hendrickson was awarded the prize in nonfiction for Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 (Knopf, 2011).

"The Chicago Tribune Literary Prize and the Heartland Awards for fiction and nonfiction reflect the Tribune's dedication to literature and the spread of ideas and enlightenment," Kern said. "We truly are honored to recognize the work of writers who have made such enormous contributions to our culture."

The Heartland Prizes were established in 1988. The Literary Prize was first awarded in 2002, and has included such recipients as Margaret Atwood, Arthur Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, Sam Shepard, and Tom Wolfe.