University of Southern California: L.A. Times Book Prize Winners Honored at Bovard Auditorium Ceremony
The annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize winners were announced Friday night in a ceremony at Bovard Auditorium on the USC University Campus. The ceremony serves as a kickoff to Saturday and Sunday’s L.A. Times Festival of Books at USC, the largest literary and cultural festival in the nation.
Winners were announced in 12 competitive categories, plus three special honors. Here are the nominees and winners, as originally published in the Times.
Achievement in Audiobook Production
Winner: Dion Graham, narrator, and Elishia Merricks, producer, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir
Other nominees:
- Maria Bamford and Mike Noble, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
- Sophia Bush, Helena De Groot and Kerri Kolen, Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver
- Helen Laser and Suzanne Franco Mitchell, Yellowface
- Adam Lazarre-White and Elishia Merricks, All the Sinners Bleed
The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
Winner: Shannon Sanders, Company: Stories
Other nominees:
- Stephen Buoro, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa: A Novel
- Sheena Patel, I’m a Fan: A Novel
- James Frankie Thomas, Idlewild: A Novel
- Ghassan Zeineddine, Dearborn
Biography
Winner: Gregg Hecimovich, The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman’s Narrative
Other nominees:
- Leah Redmond Chang, Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power
- Jonny Steinberg, Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage
- Elizabeth R. Varon, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South
- David Waldstreicher, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence
The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose
Winner: Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma
Current Interest
Winner: Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once A Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America
Other nominees:
- Bettina L. Love, Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal
- Zusha Elinson, American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15
- Cameron McWhirter, American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15
- Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes
- Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir
Fiction
Winner: Ed Park, Same Bed Different Dreams: A Novel
Other nominees:
- Susie Boyt, Loved and Missed
- Yiyun Li, Wednesday’s Child: Stories
- Elizabeth McKenzie, The Dog of the North: A Novel
- Justin Torres, Blackouts: A Novel
Graphic Novel/Comics
Winner: Emily Carroll, A Guest in the House
Other nominees:
- Derek M. Ballard, Cartoonshow
- Matías Bergara, CODA
- Sammy Harkham, Blood of the Virgin
- Chantal Montellier, Social Fiction
- Simon Spurrier, CODA
History
Winner: Joya Chatterji, Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century
Other nominees:
- Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
- Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World
- Blair L.M. Kelley, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class
- Nikki M. Taylor, Brooding Over Bloody Revenge: Enslaved Women’s Lethal Resistance
Innovator’s Award
Winner: Access Books
Mystery/Thriller
Winner: Ivy Pochoda, Sing Her Down: A Novel
Other nominees:
- Lou Berney, Dark Ride: A Thriller
- A. Cosby, All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel
- Jordan Harper, Everybody Knows: A Novel
- Cheryl A. Head, Time’s Undoing: A Novel
Poetry
Winner: Airea D. Matthews, Bread and Circus: Poems
Other nominees:
- Iver, Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco
- Maggie Millner, Couplets: A Love Story
- Jenny Molberg, The Court of No Record: Poems
- Simon Shieh, Master: Poems
Robert Kirsch Award
Winner: Jane Smiley
Science & Technology
Winner: Eugenia Cheng, Is Math Real? How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics’ Deepest Truths
Other nominees:
- Jeff Goodell, The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
- Jaime Green, The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos
- Caspar Henderson, A Book of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous
- Zach Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?
- Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?
Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction
Winner: Tananarive Due, The Reformatory: A Novel
Other nominees:
- Daniel Kraus, Whalefall
- Victor LaValle, Lone Women: A Novel
- E. Schwab, The Fragile Threads of Power
- Lily Yu, Jewel Box: Stories
Young Adult Literature
Winner: Amber McBride, Gone Wolf
Other nominees:
- Jennifer Baker, Forgive Me Not
- Olivia A. Cole, Dear Medusa
- Kim Johnson, Invisible Son
- Sarah Myer, Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story