This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.
One of my favorite award short lists was announced this week, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. From their website:
MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD
The Mark Twain House & Museum is proud to announce the titles for the Short List for The 2023 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award! The award honors an exemplary work of fiction from the previous calendar year that speaks with an “American Voice” about American experiences, much like Twain’s masterwork, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Over 120 eligible titles were submitted for consideration. Each book was reviewed by multiple members of the reading committee, resulting in a Long List of 35 incredible books announced in June 2023. After careful deliberation, a select committee has further narrowed the list down to a Short List of 10 phenomenal titles. These novels are being read by our final panel of judges who will ultimately decide the winner of the 2023 award.
THE 2023 MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE SHORT LIST
- BLISS MONTAGE by Ling Ma
- DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver
- MERCY STREET by Jennifer Haigh
- MOTHER COUNTRY by Jacinda Townsend
- NIGHT OF THE LIVING REZ by Morgan Tally
- THE HERO OF THIS BOOK by Elizabeth McCracken
- THE KINGDOM OF SAND by Andrew Holleran
- THE RABBIT HUTCH by Tess Gunty
- TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin
- TRUST by Hernan Diaz
The winning title will be announced in October and the award, along with its $25,000 prize, will be conferred by its benefactor David Baldacci at the American Voice Award Banquet on November 3 at The Mark Twain House & Museum. Tickets and information for the ceremony will be available shortly.
The Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award is sponsored by:
David Baldacci and Bank of America
The first thing you may notice is that these titles are not brand new. This award is normally a full year behind. They say so above in their about statement. So these are titles that came out in 2022. This is wonderful for you because these are titles that I know you own AND they are probably on the shelf right now.
But what I also love about this award is that it recognizes the "American" experience as captured in a work of fiction and the committee loves genre and marginalized voices. As they should because those authors and story types capture a wider view of America.
Two years ago I wrote at length about Stephen Graham Jones winning this award for The Only Good Indians which it a MASTERPIECE of American literature. In that post I also talk about why this award is such a great resource. Click through for more on that.
Also of note, all of these books were considered for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction when I was on that committee last year. And one of these, Night of the Living Rez, was one of our finalists.
The idea that the jury takes a wide view for this honor, looking at these titles as they express the American Experience is unique for an award. It also warms my American Studies major heart. But more seriously, I have read all or parts of each of these titles (again as er my service on the ACM committee) and I cannot argue with their worthiness for this honor. And taken together, they represent so many valid examples of the "American" experience. This alone, the long list providing a realistically wide view of what "American" means today, makes it a great resource.
If you simply take he last few years' of finalists, you have a diverse (both in identity of he authors and genres offered) display you can title it "The American Experience" and put it up anytime of year.
The only problem wit this award is that they don't have an archive of winners and finalists; even search of their site doesn't work. They only have the winners at the bottom of the home page for information about the award. But a very specific Google search can penetrate their archived web pages.
I have done the work for you and cobbled together places where the shortlist authors have been reported going back to the first award in 2019. The first two are via me. I will make sure to keep posting this award every year so someone is keeping this list of authors. It is too good a resource to be lost, and it appears that 2016-18 are lost except for the winners.
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