What an amazing Literary Awards Program! Over the last 20 years, the Awards Program has grown into an international sensation, attracting a diverse range of voices from all around the world. This year’s program saw nearly a thousand entries arrive from over 25 countries. From memoir to flash fiction to essays on culture to mind-bending graphic-based fiction, many of the entries stretched the imagination, changed the way we think, and haunted us as we sent them off to the judge. Almost a hundred entries have been marked to follow-up for the press. Win or not, we’ll be reviewing them for potential placement in the future catalog.
As always, it’s up to the judge as to which one of these amazing authors will walk away with the grand prize. She’s narrowed it down to a “long list” – roughly 70 manuscripts – and we’ll hope to have a short list by the first week in September. For updates, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
So, here it is! The 2019 Long List:
Unshattered: Life Before and After Columbine by Krista Hanley
Los Laristas by Monica Hileman
The Grammar of Untold Stories by Lois Melina
Idle Speculations by Kelly Kiehl
Paradise Block by Alice Ash
*Your Actual Life May Vary by Linda Lenhoff
Distance of Closeness by Carol Dines
Stronger in Heaven by Ginny Fite
Earth’s Dream of Life by Roger Conant Cranse
The Tree You Come Home To by Jane Olmstead
A Cruel Compendium: Ten Fairy Tales That Warn The Blood by Alexis Peralta
Forgotten Women Suzanne Feldman
Oh and She Has a Dog by Hildie Block
Kiva Song by Deborah Jackson Taffa
The Birth of a Tree: A Memoir of Memory, Forgiveness, and The Legacy of Family Trauma by Jocelyn M. Ulevicus
Silver Beach by Claire Cox
More Fun in the New World by Amy Stuber
Mona At Sea by Elizabeth Gonzalez James
When We Were Liars by Brian Crawford
Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly
The Red Dirt Road by Cathy Arden
Go Make Some Fire by J.L. Torres
The Violence Almanac by Miah Jeffra
The Seeing Eye Girl: A Memoir of My Life With Momma by Beverly J. Armento
Estranged by Charles Lamar Phillips
Scenic Overlook by Anne Ray
Futebol or Nada: Coming of Age in a Rio de Janeiro Favela by Sascha Bercovitch
Before Stonewall by Edward M. Cohen
Your Nightmare by Joseph Holt
Mile Marker 49 by Mac McCaskill
Mama’s Hand: A South Central L.A. Memoir by Mary Hill
Heir to the Crescent Moon by Sufiya Abdur-Rahman
Negative Space: Inheriting the Legacy of my Father’s Art and Addiction by Lilly Dancyger
Fleece by Michele Suzann
Luckiest Unlucky by Grace Mattern
Mycology by Joan Wilking
Thanks for This Riot by Janelle Bassett
Flashes and Sparks by Kate Peters
My Old Faithful by Yang Huang
Junk City by Jon Boilard
Labia Bats and Other Essays by E. C. Kelly
Paradise Undone: Stories of Jonestown by Annie Dawid
A Tangle of Contradictions by Michael Rosenbaum
Habitan-The Parallel Place by Cheryl Suma
The Hope Store by Dwight Okita
Riding with Ghosts, Angels, and the Spirits of the Dead by John Russell
One of Us: Stories by Scott Nadelson
Great Escapes from Detroit and Other Stories by Joseph O’Malley
Heaven Holds a Place by Patty Friedmann
Bamboo Grows Straight to the Sky by Janet Wells
The Book of Wanderers by Reyes Ramirez
Portraits of a Sunset by James Kendall
The Panorama Hotel by Jenny Belardi
The Be-Everything! Brothers by Matthew Pitt
Little Black Holes by Heather Harms
Her Dreams Were Also Water by Allen Jones
Molly by Kevin Honold
All I’ve Ever Done is Love You by Cathy Mellett
Little Girl Leaving: A Novel Based on a True Story by Lisa Blume
Fixed: Dope Sacks, Dye Packs, and The Long Welcome Back by Doug Piotter
The Car Salesman & Other Stories, Tips, and Tricks by Sidney Thompson
Nightbirds in an Age of Light by Catherine Gammon
Tales the Devil Told Me by Jen Fawkes
What Kind of Monster: How We Made America’s First Female Serial Killer by Mary Kay McBrayer
Hades’ Melody by J.D. Belcher
Sun Night by E.H. de la Espriella
My Other Mother by Sharon Pywell
All Mimsy Were the Borogroves: A Family’s Struggle with Lewy Body Dementia by Jennifer Dakan
The Serpent, The Puma, and The Condor: A Tale of Machu Picchu by Gayle Marie
Giving Voice by Victoria Lansford
Congratulations to the long-listed authors! It’s so exciting to see all the interesting titles and topics that were selected.
How can we read these pieces?
Sorry, Heather, the Awards program focuses primarily on unpublished material.
That said, a few folks on this list are self-published or have published via micro-presses. And almost everyone on this list has published widely online in journals and lit zines.
We’re also considering several of these titles for our 2020-2021 publishing calendars, and I do know that a handful have already received contracts from other publishers thanks to their placement on this list.
Fantastic, Krista Hanley. Her book Unshattered is phenomenal about the impact of Columbine. Should be a big-time winner!
Anne Randolph, founder KitchenTableWriting.com
So happy to have made the Long List! Fingers crossed!
Good luck to all of the finalists. Is there only one judge? It must be very difficult for one person to read and judge 1000 books. My money is on a few select authors already by seeing the long list.
I hope it’s ok to mention. If not please delete. I’m happy my book The Hope Store is on the Long List. Very honored. My book is self-published on Amazon for anyone interested. It’s a speculative novel about the first store in the world to sell hope over the counter, the customers who were transformed by it, and the controversy that ensued.