Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘awards’

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One Click to Support DZANC Books

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

As you know, we’re a big fan of DZANC Books here at FWR. They’re the definition of an independent press, and their excellent taste in literature is a big part of the reason that their authors are regular recipients of everything from NEA grants to Andrew’s Book Club picks. However, not everyone knows that DZANC is more than just a publisher. They also run several charitable programs that seek to promote and increase literacy, especially among young people. One way that they do this is with the DZANC Writer in Residence Program, which operates in several different school districts in […]


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2010 NEA Grants Announced

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

The National Endowment for the Arts just announced this year’s recipients of their Literature Fellowships. Each individual is awarded $25,000 to “set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement.” The Creative Writing Fellowships alternate years between prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry. The next cycle will be poetry, with an application deadline of March 4, 2010. You can find guidelines and more information here. This year’s winners were a diverse group, ranging from established authors like Z.Z. Packer to relative newcomers. Other standouts were essayist Donovan Hohn, whose forthcoming book, based on his Harper’s essay “Moby […]


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The 2009 Bad Sex Awards (NSFW)

by Celeste Ng

It’s the end of fall, and you know what that means. Okay, yes, NaNoWriMo is over–but I’m talking about the Literary Review‘s annual Bad Sex in Fiction Awards. It’s a shame the Literary Review doesn’t select runners-up, as each of their selections was capital-B Bad in its own special way. So here are my votes for superlatives. Check to be sure your boss isn’t around and get ready to cringe. Most Explicit Play-by-Play: from Philip Roth’s The Humbling First Pegeen stepped into the contraption, adjusted and secured the leather straps, and affixed the dildo so that it jutted straight out. […]


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Best American Short Stories by the numbers

by Celeste Ng

The Millions pointed us to this interesting analysis of the Best American Short Stories series from the blog Years of BASS. Jake, the brain behind Years of BASS, has read all of the collections since the 1978 edition and compiled some statistics. C. Max Magee (of The Millions) reports: Interestingly, Alice Munro, though Canadian, has made the most BASS appearances over the last 30 years by a wide margin with 18 appearances. After her come some more of the leading lights of short fiction: Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike with nine stories each; Mavis Gallant (another Canadian) with eight; […]


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Whiting Writers' Awards

by Anne Stameshkin

Warm congratulations to 2009’s Whiting Award winners for poetry, fiction, and plays! These are the winners in fiction (click here for a full list of recipients): – Adam Johnson: Emporium (Viking 2002), Parasites Like Us (Viking, 2003) – Nami Mun: Miles from Nowhere (Riverhead 2009) – Salvatore Scibona: The End (Graywolf 2008) – Vu Tran: as-yet-untitled first novel is forthcoming (W.W. Norton) In addition to the honor of receiving such a prestigious award, and the chance to be introduced by keynote speaker Margaret Atwood, these writers also received a substantial monetary prize: at $50,000, the Whiting is one of the […]


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2009 National Book Award finalists: "strangers" no more

by Anne Stameshkin

For the Star Tribune, Laurie Hertzel comments on this year’s remarkably un-famous crop of fiction finalists; many seemed dark horses next to literary legends like Margaret Atwood, Kazsuo Ishiguro, Lorrie Moore, and John Irving — each of whom published new books this fall, and none of whom made the list. To get better acquainted with the work of one finalist, here’s an excerpt from Column McCann’s Let the Great World Spin.


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National Book Award Finalists Announced

by Celeste Ng

The National Book Foundation has announced the 2009 National Book Award Finalists. Here are the contenders in fiction: Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press) Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House) Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W. W. Norton & Co.) Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf) Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) The complete list, as well as other fun stats and figures, can be found here. Winners will be announced on November 18 at the 60th National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony in New York. […]


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Apply for the 2009 Dzanc Prize – and spread the word

by Anne Stameshkin

The deadline to apply for the 2009 Dzanc Prize is rapidly approaching; be sure to get your work-in-progress manuscript and community service program proposal in by November 1, 2009. Here is a brief overview of what the submissions process and prize/service opportunity entail, via Dzanc’s website: In 2007, to further its mission of fostering literary excellence, community involvement, and education, Dzanc Books created the Dzanc Prize, which provides monetary aid in the sum of $5,000, to a writer of literary fiction. All writers applying for the Dzanc Prize must have a work-in-progress they can submit for review, and present the […]


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Simon Van Booy wins world’s largest short story prize

by Joshua Bodwell

On September 20th, at a ceremony in Cork, Ireland, the 34-year-old author Simon Van Booy collected the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and a 35, 000 Euro check for his collection, Love Beings in Winter (Harper Perennial, 2009). When last year’s O’Connor Award was given to Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth, judges did away with even selecting a shortlist. This year, however, Van Booy one of six writers that made up an impressive, international shortlist: An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe); Singularity by Charlotte Grimshaw (New Zealand); Ripples and other Stories by Shih-Li Kow (Malaysia); The Pleasant Light […]


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why the genius grants are, well, ingenious

by Celeste Ng

Yesterday the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the 20 recipients for the 2009 Fellowships–popularly known as the “Genius” Grants. Each of the fellows learned in a single phone call that they will receive $500,000 with no strings attached. This year’s crop includes two fiction writers, novelist Edwidge Danticat and short story writer Deborah Eisenberg. Two things about this: First, the program’s stated mission is “to enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.” So as a fiction writer, I find it empowering that the MacArthur Foundation believes writers can benefit society […]




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