Here are the finalists for CLMP’s Firecracker Awards (or, a perfect indie reading list).
This is the eighth year that the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses is celebrating indie publishing with the Firecracker Awards—and the first year that it’s giving award recipients a cash prize! Each winner in the books category will receive $1,000 for the press and $1,000 for the author/translator; winners in the magazine category will also receive $1,000.
They have also announced the recipient of this year’s Lord Nose Award (given to an individual who has demonstrated a lifetime of incredible dedication to indie publishing). Give it up for Bradford Morrow, editor of the much-loved Conjunctions—which is NOT shutting down!
At a virtual ceremony on June 23, Bradford Morrow will be presented with the award, and the winners will be announced. Mark your calendars.
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FICTION
Ethan Rutherford, Farthest South and Other Stories
(A Strange Object)
Kate Cayley, Householders
(Biblioasis)
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber, The House of Rust: A Novel
(Graywolf)
Celeste Mohammed, Pleasantview
(Ig Publishing)
Percival Everett, The Trees: A Novel
(Graywolf)
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CREATIVE NONFICTION
Victoria Chang, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing Silence, and Grief
(Milkweed Editions)
Caseen Gaines, Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way
(Sourcebooks)
Mariana Oliver, tr. Julia Sanches, Migratory Birds
(Transit Books)
Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint, Names for Light: A Family History
(Graywolf)
Allison Cobb, Plastic: An Autobiography
(Nightboat)
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POETRY
Truong Tran, book of the other: small in comparison
(Kaya Press)
Divya Victor, CURB
(Nightboat Books)
Therese Estacion, Phantompains
(Book*hug Press)
Jennifer Jackson Berry, To Know Crush
(YesYes Books)
Sophia Terazawa, Winter Phoenix: Testimonies in Verse
(Deep Vellum)
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MAGAZINES (BEST DEBUT)
Brink
Inverted Syntax
Islandia Journal
Nowruz Journal
SISTORIES
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MAGAZINES (GENERAL EXCELLENCE)
The American Poetry Review
Bellevue Literary Review
Chicago Review
The Evergreen Review
Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora