Genre: Fiction

Guardian First Book Award Goes to Biography of Cancer

Indian American oncologist and author Siddhartha Mukherjee is honored for his "anthropomorphism of a disease" in The Emperor of All Maladies (Fourth Estate), which has won the Guardian First Book Award. According judge Lisa Allardice, Mukherjee, who began the part-memoir, part-biography in an effort to contextualize cancer for one of his patients, "has managed to balance such a vast amount of information with lively narratives, combining complicated science with moving human stories. Far from being intimidating, it's a compelling, accessible book."

The only nonfiction title on the shortlist for the award, The Emperor of All Maladies, which also took the Pulitzer Prize this year, beat out four novels for the ten-thousand-pound prize (roughly $15,700). Also competing for Guardian First Book Award were American Amy Waldman's post-9/11 novel, The Submission (William Heinemann); Down the Rabbit Hole (And Other Stories Publishing) by Juan Pablo Villalobos of Mexico and translated by Rosalind Harvey; The Collaborator (Viking) by Mirza Waheed of Kashmir; and Pigeon English by British novelist Stephen Kelman (Bloomsbury), whose debut was also shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize.

"You never write books to win awardsthey are immensely gratifying but unexpected," Mukherjee said. "In recognizing The Emperor of All Maladies, the judges have also recognized the extraordinary courage and resilience of the men and women who struggle with illness, and the men and women who struggle to treat illnesses."

In the video below, the author discusses the origins of the book, and how it evolved into a biography of a disease.

December 1

12.1.11

Browse the greeting card section of a local store, looking for an occasion card or one with an image that attracts you. Based on the image or the occasion of the card, write a letter from one imagined character to another. Send the card to its intended recipient, c/o your address. When you receive it in the mail, use it as the entry point to a story. 

Nominees for the Story Prize Speak on Process and Inspiration

The Story Prize, the annual twenty-thousand-dollar award for a short story collection, closed its 2011 competition entry pool earlier this month—and now its blog is offering a close look at the writers whose books were nominated.

Authors such as Danzy Senna, William Lychack, Joseph McElroy, Ana Menendez, and Shann Ray, all of whom had collections published this year, discuss their writing processes, sources of inspiration, and the books that made them want to write.

In today's post, Menendez, nominated for her collection Adios, Happy Homeland! (Black Cat), emphasizes practice and training over "witchcraft or pure chance" as key to the creation of our masterpieces, with James Joyce and Vincent Van Gogh to back her up. Lychack, nominated for his second book, The Architect of Flowers (Mariner Books), discusses the importance of another art—judo—to achieving an understanding of balance and dedication in the writing process. And Alan Heathcock, nominated for Volt (Graywolf Press) breaks down his approach to writing into six steps. Thirty-five nominee discussions are currently posted as part of the running series.

The judges are having a word on the blog, as well. Breon Mitchell, a professor of comparative literature who is joined on the panel by Sherman Alexie and Louise Steinman, reveals what the jury is looking for in a Story Prize submission: "Samuel Beckett once said that most people could only enjoy a text if it reminded them of something else they had read. We enjoy hearing echoes of earlier texts in a new one, like musical motifs borrowed from compositions of another age. Yet we also set a high value on originality—we want to be surprised, not just by a turn of events, but by some element we may never have encountered before."

A shortlist of three collections entering the final running will be announced in January, and the winner of the Story Prize will be named on March 21 at a ceremony in New York City.

November 24

11.23.11

Write a scene from a story set at the Thanksgiving day table. During dinner have one of your character's reveal a secret or news that doesn't go over well among his or her family or dinner hosts. Consider why he or she decides to reveal the news on this day among this company. What happens next?

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