Adam Hochschild won a Northern California Book Award Wednesday night for his non-fiction book, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight To Free an Empire’s Slaves. A night earlier in Toronto, he won his SECOND Lionel Gelber Prize, which pays $135,000. No wonder Hochschild wasn’t in San Francisco to collect the award)
William T. Vollman won the fiction award for Europe Central.
Brian Turner won in poetry for Here, Bullet.
John Balcom won in the translation category for Indigenous Writers of Taiwan
Denys Cazet won in for children’s literature for The Perfect Pumpkin Pie.
Blogger and author Mark Pritchard went to the ceremony at the San Francisco Public Library and wonders why it was such a drag. Where were all the young people who cram into Litquake and Writers with Drinks, he asks.
2 comments:
Sorry to be a stickler, Frances, but it's EUROPE Central. :)
And I don't see it as old vs. young at all, but a matter of those who must treat literary events with Abject Seriousness and those who are more of a Bacchanalian mind set. The people who run the National California Book Awards have designed it so that it is devoid of life, without humor and people are crammed into that stuffy auditorium. No wonder people don't come, even with the free wine and hors d'ouevres.
Further, scheduling the ceremonies early in the evening (around 5PM) precludes many people from attending, because they're still at work.
There's a reason Litquake became more popular when it moved out of that damn auditorium. :)
Speaking as the organizer of Writers With Drinks -- which is having an event tomorrow night featuring Daniel Handler, by the way -- I think venue does matter. But promotion also matters, and so does having a community show up. The SF Public Library also hosted an event on Thursday evening for the Lambda Literary Awards nominees, and it was very well attended, because people showed up to support queer literature. Litquake is successful because it's so well publicized and has something for everyone at this point...
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