This fall a handful of NER authors have been recognized beyond our pages, by the National Book Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Best American anthologies, & Pushcart Prize. Congratulations to them all!
Two NER authors have been listed as finalists for the 2018 National Book Awards. Winners will be announced at the 69th National Book Awards ceremony on November 14.
Rebecca Makkai is included in the short list for fiction for her novel The Great Believers from Viking Books / Penguin Random House. The Great Believers deals with friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris. Makkai’s story “The Briefcase” was featured in NER 29.2.
Terrance Hayes is a finalist for the award in poetry for his collection American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, from Penguin Books / Penguin Random House. The poems collected in American Sonnets explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. His work was featured in NER 39.1.
Alison C. Rollins has been honored with a 2018 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award in poetry. The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Awards, founded in 1995 by the late novelist Rona Jaffe, are presented annually to six women writers who display excellence and promise in the early stages of their career. It is the only national literary award designed exclusively to support women writers, and is accompanied with a $30,000 prize. Rollins’s poem “Five and a Possible” is featured in NER 39.3, and can be read online here.
• Best American Short Stories 2018, guest editor Roxane Gay, ed. Heidi Pitlor, includes Yoon Choi‘s “The Art of Losing,” and among the “Other distinguished stories” is Alyssa Pelish‘s “The Pathetic Fallacy”
• Best American Poetry 2018, Dana Gioia, guest editor, includes Adrienne Su‘s poem “Substitution”
• Best American Travel Writing 2018, guest editor Cheryl Strayed, ed. Jason Wilson, includes Barrett Swanson‘s “Notes from a Last Man”
• Best American Essays, guest ed. Hilton Als, ed. Robert Atwan, lists as “Notable” Evan Lavender-Smith‘s “Post-its,” Kim McLarin‘s “Eshu Finds Work,” and Clarence Orsi‘s “Take Stock”
• New Stories from the Midwest, guest editor Antonya Nelson, honors Steve de Jarnatt’s “Wraiths in Swelter”
• Pushcart 2019—due out in November—will include Nomi Stone‘s poem “Wonder Days”