New populist US literary award unveils nominees
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Written by terrypratchettbooks.org
Friday, 05 August 2005 |
By Claudia Parsons
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Authors ranging from Bob Dylan to Stephen King on Thursday made the Quills short-list -- a new American literary award pitched as a populist event with a touch of Hollywood glitz.
Readers will vote for the winners in 19 categories that include graphic novels and romance, as well as the more traditional fiction and biography categories from established prizes such as the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.
"This is the first consumer-driven awards program that acknowledges the power and importance of the written word and celebrates literacy," said Jay Ireland, President of NBC Universal Television Stations, which will broadcast highlights from The Quill Awards ceremony in October.
In the prestigious fiction category, the nominees included British writer Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down," about four strangers who meet while trying to commit suicide, and Chilean author Isabel Allende's "Zorro."
Also in the running were three American authors -- Marilynne Robinson for "Gilead" which won the Pulitzer Prize, Philip Roth for "The Plot Against America" and Sue Monk Kidd for "The Mermaid Chair," the follow-up to "The Secret Life of Bees" which has been on Publishers Weekly's trade paperback bestseller list for 128 weeks.
Gerry Byrne, the former publisher of Variety magazine who designed the Quills program, said nominees had been chosen by a panel of around 6,000 booksellers and librarians as part of a strategy of rewarding books that readers really want to read.
"Most of the other awards, quite honestly, they're more inside the industry," Byrne said. "This is meant to reach out and touch the consumers."
GLITZY AWARDS CEREMONY
Readers can find the full list of nominees and vote online at www.quillsvote.com and through major bookstores.
U.S. publishing awards have never attracted as much popular interest as the Booker Prize in Britain, which makes front-page news and is credited as a major driver of sales. The Quills were created on the initiative of Reed Business Information, parent of Publishers Weekly, in a bid to fill that gap.
The list of nominees includes plenty of celebrities -- from Bob Dylan for his autobiography "Chronicles: Volume One," to comedian Jon Stewart for his satirical textbook "America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction."
There will be awards for the popular categories of health and self improvement and science fiction/fantasy/horror -- a category that boasts big names like Stephen King and Terry Pratchett -- and the nominees for business books include such household names as retired General Electric CEO Jack Welsh.
Byrne said some nominees might surprise critics but in today's multimedia world "authors are celebrities and celebrities are becoming authors."
"It's a sign of the times ... and certainly some of the stuff that's been done by the celebrities is pretty good," he said. The aim of the awards was to promote literacy and reading to American consumers overwhelmed with film, music, television and other entertainment options, he added.
The awards will be presented at a glitzy ceremony in New York on October 11 to be hosted by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. Byrne said it would be no ordinary awards show with dull speeches and long lists of obscure nominees.
"Purists out there, whoever they may be, might look and say how could they, in certain aspects of the evening, trivialize what's so important," Byrne said, promising stunts and gags.
There are no cash prizes for the winners in each category or for the overall book of the year, just a trophy.
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