Congratulations to 2012 PNBA Award winner Lidia Yuknavitch!

Congratulations to Lidia Yuknavitch for winning the 2012 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for her gritty memoir The Chronology of Water! Composed of independent bookstores throughout the Pacific Northwest, The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association has recognized great writing in the Northwest since 1965. The award committee considered more than 200 published works before awarding Lidia Yuknavtich and five other Northwest authors with this prestigious honor. Previous recipients of the award include Chuck Palahniuk, Sherman Alexie, John Krakauer and Ivan Doig.

Yuknavitch is also nominated for the 2012 Oregon Book Award for The Chronology of Water. Her memoir has also been cited by many as one of the best books of 2011, including HTML Giant, Flavorwire, The Rumpus and Powell’s Books.

But here at Hawthorne Books, many of our authors have received awards and commendations for their brilliant works. Here’s a quick look at what some of the Hawthorne Books authors have accomplished:

Peter Donahue, the author of Madison House: A Novel, won the Langum Prize for Historical Fiction in 2005.

As the author of many books, including Clown Girl, Monica Drake has received the Arizona Commission on the Arts Award, The Alligator Juniper Prize in Fiction, a Millay Colony Fellowship and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship at the Sewanee Writers Workshop.

Peter H. Fogtdal has garnered The Francophonian Literature Prize (Le Prix Litteraire de la Francophonie) for the novel Le Front Chantilly. He is also the author of The Tsar’s Dwarf.

Gregory Martin earned the Washington State Book Award for his memoir Mountain City. His book Stories for Boys: A Memoir is due out in October of 2012.

Marc Mordue won the Australian Pascall Prize for Critical Writing in 2010. He is also the author of Dastgah: A Headtrip.

Scott Nadelson’s The Cantor’s Daughter won The Samuel Goldberg & Sons Prize for Emerging Jewish Writers and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize. Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories was the winner of the Oregon Book Award for Short Fiction and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award in 2006.

Toby Olson won the PEN/Faulkner Award for The Most Distinguished Work of American Fiction for his novel Seaview in 1983.

Loretta Stinson has received the 2007 Doug Fir Fiction Prize and the 2008 Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship in Fiction. She has written one novel, entitled Little Green.

Richard Wiley received the 1987 PEN/Faulkner Award for Best American Fiction for his first novel, Soldiers in Hiding.

Congratulations once again to Lidia Yuknavitch and all the writers at Hawthorne Books who have accomplished so much!

Every once in awhile it’s good to do a roundup of Hawthorne goings-on. The past few weeks we’ve had a lot of great events and press for Hawthorne titles and authors that we’d like to share with you here. Loretta Stinson will be reading at Annie Bloom’s Books in Multnomah Village tonight at 7:30pm and she has a lot of upcoming events. Check out her beautiful revamped website for an up-to-the-minute Loretta schedule. Little Green has also been getting a lot of great reviews and coverage. Here are a few of the latest:

The Rumpus review of Little Green

Biblioklept’s review of Little Green

For all things Loretta Stinson head here...

PETER H. FOGTDAL & THE TSAR’S DWARF

Peter H. Fogtdal’s novel The Tsar’s Dwarf got a great review in the Spring 2010 issue of The Los Angeles Review. If you haven’t checked out this Red Hen Press publication you’re missing out. Included in the issue are stories by Barry Lopez, Tess Gallagher, Rick Bass and Mark Acito.

So happy to get this in the mail...

The Los Angeles Review's review of The Tsar's Dwarf.

MONICA DRAKE & CLOWN GIRL

Monica Drake’s novel Clown Girl continues to get a lot of great press and attention, not to mention the optioning of the novel by SNL’s Kristen Wiig. Here’s the latest Clown Girl review from Rose City Reader.

Still garnering great reviews...

FRANK MEEINK, JODY M. ROY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECOVERING SKINHEAD

Frank Meeink of Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead is winding down his 20-plus city tour and the media hits keep coming. Tune into The Leonard Lopate Show today or visit the online archives and listen to Frank talk about his past and the book. He will also be on CBS’ The Unfiltered Show.

Check out Frank Meeink on today's The Leonard Lopate Show.

SCOTT NADELSON & PLOUGHSHARES BLOG

Hawthorne Books author Scott Nadelson has been writing regularly over at the Ploughshares Blog. We’ve really been enjoying his posts and think you will too.

A lot of good writing from Scott Nadelson on the Ploughshares blog.

For more information about all of these titles and more please visit the Hawthorne Books website:
www.hawthornebooks.com

Soerine is funny too.

See people are smiling and in a few more seconds they will be laughing because Peter H. Fogtdal is about to start his UCLA reading for them. Laughing with Peter of course...

Hawthorne Books’ author Peter H. Fogtdal recently gave a reading of The Tsar’s Dwarf at UCLA’s The Scandinavian Section and even though it was a sunny mid-day event it was a great turnout.

In his words:

2.
When you walk around UCLA’s gorgeous campus, you discover that even the buildings are celebrities. I pass Ronald Reagan Medical Center, Herb Albert’s School of Music, and Cher’s Institute for Plastic Surgery. And I marvel how lucky it is that a small time Scandinavian novelist has been allowed to do a reading for this crowd.

Will Jack Nicholson show up, I ask myself? Or do I have to settle for a drunk Charlie Sheen? In my mind I see the crowded auditorium with paparazzi fighting for a photo of Angelina Jolie and me. I picture gorgeous sophomores dragging me to their dorm rooms – against my will, of course.

But unfortunately, I’m not a star. I’m just another Dane with dandruff, so I’m left to babble at The Scandinavian Institute at Royce Hall. In a small room with squeaky chairs and hoarse Norwegians.

3.
It’s great though.

Thirty people show up. Some of them have to stand in the hall. And hey, most students haven’t even been forced by gun point. However, I don’t count a single celebrity. Their excuses for not coming are so lame. Sandra Bullock said she was practicing her Oscar speech, and Madonna is adopting the country of Malawi. That woman just can’t get enough of anything, can she?

But I’m a humble man. I like people who haven’t been on TV. Unlike everybody else in L.A.

To read more about this and more visit Peter’s blog @ Danish Accent.

Hawthorne Books author Peter H. Fogtdal was born in 1956 in Copenhagen, Denmark and has a degree in playwriting from Cal State Fullerton. He is the author of twelve novels in Danish. Three have been translated into French, two into Portuguese. In 2005 he won The Francophonian Literature Prize (Le Prix Litteraire de la Francophonie) for Le Front Chantilly. The Tsar’s Dwarf is his first novel in English. Peter H. Fogtdal shares his time between Portland, Oregon, and Copenhagen, Denmark.