PEN America has announced their 2023 longlists, including for their Open Book Award. The prize is given for an exceptional book-length work of any literary genre by an author of color. The awardee will be a Fellow at the Castle during the 2024 season. The awards ceremony will take place on Thursday, March 2nd. The following are the books longlisted for the Open Book award:
The Black Period, Hafizah Augustus Geter (Random House)
Golden Ax, Rio Cortez (Penguin Books)
Shutter, Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
The Listening Skin: Poems, Glenis Redmond (Four Way Books)
Gorgoneion, Casey Rocheteau (Noemi Press)
All the Flowers Kneeling, Paul Tran (Penguin Books)
The Town of Babylon, Alejandro Varela (Astra House)
Making Love with the Land, Joshua Whitehead (University of Minnesota Press)
Last Summer on State Street, Toya Wolfe (William Morrow & Company)
Solito, Javier Zamora (Hogarth Press)
Many Civitellians are also nominated or serving as judges for the PEN Awards.
Lauren Groff (CRF 2021) is a judge for the PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD; Gina Apostol (CRF 2009, Juror) is a judge for the PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL; Molly McCully Brown (CRF 2017) is a judge for the PEN/VOELCKER AWARD FOR POETRY COLLECTION.
Dora Malech (CRF 2009, DG 2019) is nominated for the PEN AWARD FOR POETRY IN TRANSLATION for her co-translation from Italian of Dolore Minimo by Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto. Valzhyna Mort (Incoming Writing Fellow 2023) is nominated for the same award for her co-translation from Belarusian of Motherfield by Julia Cimafiejeva.
Peter Orner (CRF 2011) is nominated for PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY for Still No Word From You.
Read more about the PEN longlists.
