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 [2].
Winners—the people who "sharpen the cutting edge," according to the Web site—are determined by total number of votes received.