"Whereas," a collection of poems by writer Layli Long Soldier and published by Graywolf Press of Minneapolis, was chosen as the winner of the National Book Critics Circle prize for poetry. Long Soldier was honored at a ceremony this evening in New York City, along with five other writers--all, as it happens, women.
The list of winners includes:
Xioulu Guo, "Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China," (Grove Press), winner for autobiography.
Carina Chocano, "You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks and Other Mixed Messages," (Mariner Press), criticism.
Caroline Fraser, "Prairie Fires: the American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder," (Metropolitan Books), biography.
Joan Silber, "Improvement," (Counterpoint Press), fiction.
Frances FitzGerald, "The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America," (Simon & Schuster), nonfiction.
Some winners were previously announced, including the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, which went to critic Charles Finch; the John Leonard Prize for best first novel, which went to Graywolf Press' "Her Body and Other Parties: Stories," by Carmen Maria Machado; and the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement, which went to writer John McPhee.
The NBCC is a professional organization of about 800 book reviewers, books editors and book critics.
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