Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Firecracker Awards

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.  

Below is an award that is new to me-- The Firecracker Awards; in fact, I only heard of it because my kid's employer [The Common] is up for an award [below]. And then, it also made Library Journal's Book Pulse daily newsletter. And then, I saw one of the judges was-- Allison Escoto who along with being the Librarian at the Center for Fiction is also the Administrative Assistant for LibraryReads. 

So yes, all of those factors made me do a triple take on this award and give it a harder look and now I know it is 100% worth your time to explore this more. It is for all independently published literature and the presses they are considering are ones for which you already have titles in your collections. These authors in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are authors who you should be collecting and knowing about. 

And the link to their past winners and nominees was in the award announcement below, and here. A quick perusal of that link will confirm that the authors who are singled out here do go on to matter in terms of our collections and readers. 

Firecracker Awards

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Celebrating the Best of Independently Published Literature

The CLMP Firecracker Awards for Independently Published Literature are given annually to celebrate books and magazines that make a significant contribution to our literary culture and the publishers that strive to introduce important voices to readers far and wide. Prizes are awarded in the categories of Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, Magazine/General Excellence, and Magazine/Best Debut. Each year, CLMP also awards the Lord Nose Award, given to a publisher or editor in recognition of a lifetime of work in literary publishing.

Each winner in the books category will receive $2,000–$1,000 for the press and $1,000 for the author or translator–and each winner in the magazine categories will receive $1,000. In addition, a national publicity campaign spotlights and promotes our winning titles each year. In partnership with the American Booksellers Association, promotional materials—including a press release and shelf talkers featuring the winning titles—are distributed to over 500 independent booksellers across the country. Winners are also promoted in CLMP’s newsletters, on our website, and through a dedicated social media campaign. The publishers of winning titles receive a free one-year membership to CLMP, and magazine winners receive a one-year CLMP Member subscription to Submittable. To read press coverage about the 2023 Firecracker Award winners, visit our Press Center.

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony on June 27, 2024, at 6 p.m. ET. Click here to RSVP for the Zoom.

2024 FIRECRACKER AWARDS FINALISTS:

FICTION
Landscapes by Christine Lai, published by Two Dollar Radio
You Were Watching from the Sand by Juliana Lamy, published by Red Hen Press
The Simple Art of Killing a Woman by Patrícia Melo, translated by Sophie Lewis, published by Restless Books
The Girl Before Her by Line Papin, translated by Adriana Hunter and Ly Lan Dill, published by Kaya Press
Dearborn by Ghassan Zeineddine, published by Tin House

CREATIVE NONFICTION
None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary by Travis Alabanza, published by Feminist Press
Holy American Burnout! by Sean Enfield, published by Split/Lip Press
On Community by Casey Plett, published by Biblioasis
The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth by Elizabeth Rush, published by Milkweed Editions
Otherwise by Julie Marie Wade, published by Autumn House Press

POETRY
The Limitless Heart by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, published by Haymarket Books
Village by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, published by Coffee House Press
Rebozos of love by Juan Felipe Herrera, published by FlowerSong Press
Hydra Medusa by Brandon Shimoda, published by Nightboat Books
Kaan and Her Sisters by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, published by Trio House Press

MAGAZINES/BEST DEBUT
Changing Skies
Folly
Mister Magazine
Short Reads
SWING

MAGAZINES/GENERAL EXCELLENCE
The Common
Lampblack
LIBER: A Feminist Review
Virginia Quarterly Review
Words Without Borders

2024 Firecracker Award Judges

Fiction

Zeyn Joukhadar, author of The Thirty Names of Night, published by Atria Books
Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, author of What We Fed to the Manticore, published by Tin House
Kevin Sampsell, events coordinator and small-press book buyer at Powell’s Books

Creative Nonfiction

Edgar Gomez, author of High Risk Homosexual: A Memoir, published by Soft Skull Press
Raquel Gutiérrez, author of Brown Neon, published by Coffee House Press
Gaël LeLamer, head book buyer at Books & Books

Poetry 

Allison Escoto, head librarian and education director at The Center for Fiction
Crystal Wilkinson, author of Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, published by Clarkson Potter
Shelley Wong, author of As She Appears, published by YesYes Books

Magazine

Sam Campbell, managing editor, The Arkansas International
Manuel Gonzales, fiction editor, Bennington Review
Dana Isokawa, editor in chief, The Margins