Essence magazine announced the finalists in all nine categories of its first annual Essence Literary Awards this morning.
Essence readers may vote on Essence.com among the top five finalists in the Storyteller of the Year category. However the winners in the other eight categories will be selected by a panel of publishing experts and announced at an awards ceremony, emceed by Hoda Kotb and Dr. Ian Smith, to be held in New York City on February 7, 2008. Author Terry McMillan will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award that evening, and the Countee Cullen Regional Library in Harlem, a branch of the New York City Public Library system, will be the first recipient of the Save Our Libraries campaign.
Nominees are:
FICTION
Red River, Lalita Tademy (Grand Central)
Casanegra, Blair Underwood, Steven Barnes, and Tananarive (Atria)
The Pirate’s Daughter, Margaret Cezair-Thompson (Unbridled)
New England White, Stephen L. Carter (Knopf)
Knots, Nuruddin Farah (Riverhead)
MEMOIR
Brother, I’m Dying, Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
The Women Who Raised Me, Victoria Rowell (Morrow)
Alek, Alek Wek (Amistad)
One Drop, Bliss Broyard (Little, Brown)
A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah (FSG)
INSPIRATION
Reposition Yourself, TD Jakes (Atria)
From the Heart, Robin Roberts (Hyperion)
Quiet Strength, Tony Dungy (Tyndale)
Do You!, Russell Simmons (Penguin)
How Strong Women Pray, Bonnie St. John (Faith Words)
NON-FICTION
The Bond, Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt (Riverhead)
Friends: A Love Story, Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance (Harlequin)
I Got Your Back, Eddie and Gerald Levert (Harlem Moon)
Foreigners, Caryl Phillips (Knopf)
Supreme Discomfort, Michael Fletcher and Kevin Merida (Doubleday)
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Come on People, Bill Cosby (Thomas Nelson)
The Covenant in Action, Tavis Smiley (Smiley Books)
An Unbroken Agony, Randall Robinson (Basic Civitas)
Know What I Mean?, Michael Eric Dyson (Perseus)
Twice As Good, Marcus Mabry (Modern Times)
PHOTOGRAPHY
Daufuskie Island, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (Univ. of South Carolina Press)
Pop, Carol Ross (Stewart, Tabori & Chang)
Jimi Hendrix, Janie Hendrix (Atria)
Let Your Motto Be Resistance, Deborah Willis, ed. (Smithsonian)
Jewels, Michael Cunningham and Connie Briscoe (Little, Brown)
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Henry’s Freedom Box, Ellen Levine, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Scholastic )
Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel, Patricia Storace and Raul Colon (Jump at the Sun)
Marvelous World, Troy Cle (S&S Children’s)
The Shadow Speaker, Nnedi Okorafor-mbachu (Jump at the Sun)
Salli Gal and the Wall-a-Kee Man, Sheila P. Moses (Scholastic)
POETRY
Duende by Tracy K. Smith (Graywolf)
Acolytes by Nikki Giovanni (Morrow)
Totem by Gregory Pardlo (American Poetry Review)
STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR
(voted on by Essence readers at Essence.com)
Eric Jerome Dickey
Lori Bryant-Woolridge
Trisha R. Thomas
L.A. Banks
Tananarive Due
Recent Comments