American Book Award

 
  Oakland CA - The Before Columbus Foundation announces the Winners of the Twenty-First Annual AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS (see enclosed list of winners). The 2000 American Book Award winners will be formally recognized during the Book Expo America Convention in Chicago, Illinois, with the Ceremonies and Reception being held on Saturday, June 3rd, from 6:30-8:00 P.M., at the Continental Room at the Chicago Athletic Association in Chicago, 12 South Michigan Blvd (between Madison and Monroe).

The American Book Awards were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America's diverse literary community. The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions. There are no categories, no nominees, and therefore no losers. The award winners range from well-known and established writers to under-recognized authors and first works. Many previous winners have later gone on to win other awards, ranging from regional prizes to the Nobel Prize. There are no quotas for diversity, the winners list simply reflects it as a natural process. The Before Columbus Foundation views American culture as inclusive and has always considered the term "multicultural" to be not a description of various categories, groups, or "special interests," but rather as the definition of all of American literature. The Awards are not bestowed by an industry organization, but rather are a writers' award given by other writers. (The Before Columbus Foundation is an independent non-profit organization.)


 
 
 

American Book Award Winners 2000

Esther G. Belin, From the Belly of My Beauty (University of Arizona Press)

Jon Eckels, Sing When the Spirit Says Sing: Selected 6 New Poems 1960-1990
   (Vision-Victory People)

Emil Guillermo, Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective
    (Asian Week Books/Monkey Tales Press)

Elva Trevijio Hart, Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child (Bilingual Review Press)

Michael Lally, It's Not Nostalgia: Poetry and Prose (Black Sparrow)

Michael Patrick MacDonald, All Souls: A Family Story from Southie (Beacon Press)

Andres Montoya, The Ice Workers Sings and Other Poems (Bilingual Review Press)

Kate Moses and Camille Pen, editors, Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood
   (Random House)

Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (Milkweed Editions)

David A.J. Richards, Italian American: The Racializing ofan Ethnic Identity
   (New York University Press)

John Russell Rickford and Russell John Rickford, Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English
   (John Wiley & Sons)

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Why She Left Us (HarperCollins)

Allan J. Ryan, The Trickster Shift: Humor and Irony in Contemporary Native Art
   (University of British Columbia Press)

Leroy TeCube, Year in Nam: A Native American Soldier's Story (University of Nebraska Press)

Helen Thomas, Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times (Scribner)

David Toop, Exotica (Serpentts Tail Press)

Lois Ann Yamanaka, Heads by Harry
(as part of trilogy with Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers and Blu's Hanging)
    (Farrar Straus & Giroux)



Journalism Award:

          Jack White



Editor/Publisher Award:

          Ronald Sukenick



Lifetime Achievement Award:

          Frank Chin

          Robert Creeley