BPL Book Prize Shortlist Panel Event
Join Brooklyn Public Library as we celebrate the 2023 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize shortlist finalists!
This BPL Book Prize event will feature two panels featuring authors who have been shortlisted for the 2023 Prize, moderated by BPL Librarian and Prize Chair Jess Harwick.
The complete 2023 longlist and shortlist can be viewed here. See below to view the shortlist authors who are participating in this event. In November, the winners will receive a $5,000 prize. Congratulations to this year's nominees!
The panels will be followed by a short reception in the Dweck Lobby.
About the prize: Each year Brooklyn Public Library honors outstanding works of nonfiction and fiction/poetry with a prize given in the fall. Selected by librarians and library staff, who draw on their broad knowledge of literature and the many populations they serve, the BPL Book Prize recognizes writing that captures the spirit of Brooklyn, one of the most socially and culturally diverse communities in the country.
The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize was established in 2015 by the Brooklyn Eagles, a group of young and engaged Brooklynites who are passionate about Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) and work to engage new patrons, promote the Library as a cultural center, and build a vibrant community around the resources the library offers.
The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize is generously underwritten by the Peck Stacpoole Foundation.
Participants
Chen Chen is the author of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions), a best book of 2022 according to the Boston Globe, Electric Lit, Smithsonian Magazine, and others. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions), was long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award and won the 2018 Thom Gunn Award. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists. He teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch. Photo credit Anna Jekel
Oscar Hokeah is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma from his mother's side and has Mexican heritage through his father. He holds an MA in English with a concentration in Native American Literature from the University of Oklahoma, as well as a BFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), with a minor in Indigenous Liberal Studies. He is a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through IAIA and is also a winner of the Native Writer Award through the Taos Summer Writers Conference. His short stories have been published in South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South, and Red Ink Magazine. He works with Indian Child Welfare in Tahlequah. His debut novel, Calling for A Blanket Dance, is the winner of the PEN America/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the Reading the West Book Award for Debut Fiction, and a finalist for the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the L.A. Times Book Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Photo credit Dalton Perse
Catherine Lacey is the author of the novels Nobody Is Ever Missing, The Answers, and Pew, and the short story collection Certain American States. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. She has been a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Believer, and elsewhere. Photo credit Willy Somma
Linda Villarosa a journalism professor at the City University of New York and a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, where she covers the intersection of race and health. She has also served as executive editor at Essence and as a science editor at The New York Times. Her article on maternal and infant mortality was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. She is a contributor to The 1619 Project. Photo credit Nic Villarosa
Lamya H (she/they) is a queer Muslim writer and organizer living in New York City. Her memoir HIJAB BUTCH BLUES was published in February 2023. Lamya’s work has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, Vice, Autostraddle, Vox, and others. She has received fellowships from Lambda Literary and Queer|Arts. Lamya’s organizing work centers around creating spaces for LGBTQ+ Muslims, fighting Islamophobia, and abolishing prisons. In her free time, she eats lots of desserts baked by her partner, plays board games with whoever she can corral, and works on her goal of traveling to every subway stop in the city. Find her on X/Twitter and IG: @lamyaisangry Photo credit Lia Clay for the Queer Art Community Portrait Project
Join Brooklyn Public Library as we celebrate the 2023 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize shortlist finalists!
This BPL Book Prize event will feature two panels featuring authors who have been shortlisted for the 2023 Prize, moderated by BPL Librarian and Prize Chair Jess Harwick.
The complete 2023 longlist and shortlist can be viewed here. See below to view the shortlist authors who are participating in this event. In November, the winners will receive a $5,000 prize. Congratulations to this year's nominees!
The panels will be followed by a short reception in the Dweck Lobby.
About the prize: Each year Brooklyn Public Library honors outstanding works of nonfiction and fiction/poetry with a prize given in the fall. Selected by librarians and library staff, who draw on their broad knowledge of literature and the many populations they serve, the BPL Book Prize recognizes writing that captures the spirit of Brooklyn, one of the most socially and culturally diverse communities in the country.
The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize was established in 2015 by the Brooklyn Eagles, a group of young and engaged Brooklynites who are passionate about Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) and work to engage new patrons, promote the Library as a cultural center, and build a vibrant community around the resources the library offers.
The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize is generously underwritten by the Peck Stacpoole Foundation.
Participants
Chen Chen is the author of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions), a best book of 2022 according to the Boston Globe, Electric Lit, Smithsonian Magazine, and others. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions), was long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award and won the 2018 Thom Gunn Award. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists. He teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch. Photo credit Anna Jekel
Oscar Hokeah is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma from his mother's side and has Mexican heritage through his father. He holds an MA in English with a concentration in Native American Literature from the University of Oklahoma, as well as a BFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), with a minor in Indigenous Liberal Studies. He is a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through IAIA and is also a winner of the Native Writer Award through the Taos Summer Writers Conference. His short stories have been published in South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South, and Red Ink Magazine. He works with Indian Child Welfare in Tahlequah. His debut novel, Calling for A Blanket Dance, is the winner of the PEN America/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the Reading the West Book Award for Debut Fiction, and a finalist for the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the L.A. Times Book Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Photo credit Dalton Perse
Catherine Lacey is the author of the novels Nobody Is Ever Missing, The Answers, and Pew, and the short story collection Certain American States. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. She has been a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Believer, and elsewhere. Photo credit Willy Somma
Linda Villarosa a journalism professor at the City University of New York and a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, where she covers the intersection of race and health. She has also served as executive editor at Essence and as a science editor at The New York Times. Her article on maternal and infant mortality was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. She is a contributor to The 1619 Project. Photo credit Nic Villarosa
Lamya H (she/they) is a queer Muslim writer and organizer living in New York City. Her memoir HIJAB BUTCH BLUES was published in February 2023. Lamya’s work has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, Vice, Autostraddle, Vox, and others. She has received fellowships from Lambda Literary and Queer|Arts. Lamya’s organizing work centers around creating spaces for LGBTQ+ Muslims, fighting Islamophobia, and abolishing prisons. In her free time, she eats lots of desserts baked by her partner, plays board games with whoever she can corral, and works on her goal of traveling to every subway stop in the city. Find her on X/Twitter and IG: @lamyaisangry Photo credit Lia Clay for the Queer Art Community Portrait Project