The seventh annual Firecracker Alternative Book Awards, celebrating "insurrectionary culture that lights a fire under the complacent mainstream booty," were announced on May 3 at a ceremony in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Beth Lisick won in fiction for This Too Can Be Yours (Manic D Press); Dodie Bellamy won in poetry for Cunt-Ups (Tender Buttons Books); and Eric Scholsser won in nonfiction for Fast Food Nation (Houghton Mifflin). Other categories included Politics, Sex, Drugs, Music, Art/Photo, Graphic Novel, and Kids. Seattle-based comics publisher Fantagraphics Books won the award for Outstanding Independent Press of the Year.
Finalists for the annual awards are nominated by a revolving committee of volunteer booksellers and journalists. The public is then allowed to vote online at www.firecrackerbooks.org.
Winners—the people who "sharpen the cutting edge," according to the Web site—are determined by total number of votes received.
