The six finalists for its 2011 Discover Great New Writers Awards were announced today by Barnes & Noble. The winners in each category, fiction and nonfiction, receive a ,000 prize and a full year of additional promotion from Barnes & Noble. Second-place finalists receive ,000, and third-place finalists, ,500. The finalists are:
Fiction:
- Alan Heathcock, Volt (Graywolf Press)
- Alice LaPlante, Turn of Mind (Atlantic Monthly Press)
- Scott O’Connor, Untouchable (Tyrus Books, a division of F+W Media, Inc.)
Nonfiction:
- Annia Ciezadlo, Day of Honey (Free Press)
- Joshua Cody, [sic] (W.W. Norton)
- Michael Levy, Kosher Chinese (Henry Holt & Co.)
Winners will be announced on March 7 at a private awards ceremony. The Discover Awards honor the best works featured the previous calendar year in the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program.
Books by the finalists and judges can be purchased at any Barnes & Noble store, online at Barnes & Noble.com or instantly downloaded on any NOOK eBook Reader.
The Jurists
Two panels of distinguished literary judges selected the finalists and will select the winners. Serving as this year’s fiction judges are: Chris Abani, author of the 2004 Discover selection GraceLand and, most recently, the poetry collection, Sanctificum; Lauren Belfer, author of A Fierce Radiance and the 1999 Discover selection City of Light; and Bo Caldwell, author of the national bestsellers City of Tranquil Light and The Distant Land of My Father.
This year’s nonfiction judges are: Marie Arana, author of two novels, Cellophane and Lima Nights, and a memoir, American Chica, a 2002 Discover Great New Writers selection; John Freeman, former president of the National Book Critics circle and author of The Tyranny of E-Mail, a 2009 Discover selection; and Koren Zailckas, author of Fury and the 2005 Discover selection Smashed.
The Discover Awards
The Discover Great New Writers program was established in 1990 to highlight works of exceptional literary quality that might otherwise be overlooked in a crowded book marketplace. This year’s selections featured the work of 68 new and previously underappreciated writers. Submissions to the program are read and discussed by a group of Barnes & Noble booksellers before selection for the program’s seasonal promotions.
Past winners of the annual Discover Great New Writers Award include Kim Echlin for The Disappeared and David R. Dow for The Autobiography of an Execution (both 2010), David Sheff for Beautiful Boy (2008), Joshua Ferris for Then We Came to the End (2007), Eric Blehm for The Last Season (2006), Nathaniel Fick for One Bullet Away (2005), Alison Smith for Name All the Animals (2004), Monica Ali for Brick Lane (2003), Dina Temple-Ralston for A Death in Texas (2002), Hampton Sides for Ghost Soldiers (2001), Tracy Chevalier for Girl with a Pearl Earring (2000), Elizabeth McCracken for The Giant’s House (1996), Chang-rae Lee for Native Speaker (1995), and David Guterson for Snow Falling on Cedars (1994).
