Hawthorne Books sells world rights to The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips to Riverhead Books.

02 April 2009

Geoffrey Kloske, Vice President and Publisher of Riverhead Books, today announced the acquisition of world rights to the critically acclaimed, award-winning debut novel by Gin Phillips, The Well and the Mine, from Hawthorne Books. Winner of the highly regarded Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award in the fiction category, The Well and the Mine is set in a small Alabama coal-mining town during the Depression and explores the value of community, charity, family, and hope during a time of hardship. In the wake of a mysterious crime witnessed by a nine-year-old-girl, her family is forced to look beyond its own door to see their community in all its complexity, and to learn a fuller definition of compassion.

Mr. Kloske commented, “This is a fabulous book, with a wonderful chorus of narrative voices, subtle textures, and multiple layers that are rarely found in a debut novel. Gin Phillips is an extremely talented emerging writer and The Well and the Mine is a very exciting addition to Riverhead’s award-wining, bestselling list.”

Kate Sage and Rhonda Hughes, Co-Publishers, Hawthorne Books, added, “The Well and the Mine is a warm, true, and accomplished novel that moves readers, and we are excited to be partnering with Riverhead to introduce it to the widest possible audience. Riverhead’s impeccable editorial choices and acumen make working with them an exciting proposition for us, and the relationship they have already cultivated with Hawthorne and with Gin gives us confidence that they will be wonderful stewards of this extraordinary work.”

Ms. Phillips said, “I’m very personally attached to these characters and to this story. And I’m grateful that, three years ago, Hawthorne took a chance on the book when no one else would. I’m thrilled and honored and still stunned by all the attention the book has received—it’s much more than I hoped for. And now I’m looking forward to working with Riverhead as they help The Well and the Mine connect with an even greater number of readers.”

Originally published as a trade paperback by Hawthorne Books in 2008, the new edition of The Well and the Mine will be available in trade paperback from Riverhead beginning April 8, 2009.

Gin Phillips and The Well and the Mine have received enthusiastic praise:

O, The Oprah Magazine called Gin Phillips “a dazzling new novelist,” and praised The Well and the Mine as “a quietly bold debut; full of heart.”

An “astonishing debut novel … Much like To Kill a Mockingbird, The Well and the Mine is about the strange contortions forced on humanity by racism and poverty.” —Los Angeles Times

“Phillips’s evocative first novel … moves skillfully between [many] points of view…With a wisp of suspense, Phillips fully enters the lives of her honorable characters and brings them vibrantly to the page.” —Publishers Weekly

“When you close the book, you’ll miss these characters. But The Well and the Mine doesn’t just give you characters who’ll stay with you—it gives you a whole world.” —Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

“It’s absolutely flawless: a beautiful Depression-era story told without irony. I reveled in its shades of Harper Lee and Faulkner. Timeless, captivating, honest, brave—and not one false move.” —Suzanne Finnamore, author of Otherwise Engaged and Split, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great Writers Award Judge

“Like Willa Cather’s, Phillips’ language is deep, clean, strong, and true; and her characters are at once interestingly familiar, human, refreshingly strange, complex… Gin Phillips is a truly great new American writer.” —Kate Christensen, Pen Faulkner Award–winning author of The Great Man, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great Writers Award Judge

NOTE TO THE PRESS

Gin Phillips is a freelance writer. A 1997 graduate of Birmingham-Southern College, she grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, and currently lives in Birmingham. The Well and the Mine is her first novel.

Riverhead Books is a distinguished and critically acclaimed imprint of Penguin Group (USA). It is home to many New York Times–bestselling and award-winning authors, including Khaled Hosseini, Junot Díaz, Kathleen Norris, James McBride, Daniel Pink, Nick Hornby, Sarah Vowell, Shalom Auslander, Dinaw Mengestu, and Aleksandar Hemon, among others. Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. member of the internationally renowned Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) is one of the leading U.S. adult and children’s trade book publishers, owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Viking, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, The Penguin Press, Riverhead Books, Dutton, Penguin Books, Berkley Books, Gotham Books, Portfolio, New American Library, Plume, Tarcher, Philomel, Grosset & Dunlap, Puffin, and Frederick Warne, among others. The Penguin Group (http://www.penguin.com) is part of Pearson plc, the international media company.

Hawthorne Books, founded in 2001, is a small press located in Portland, Oregon, publishing American literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. Its authors include award winners Poe Ballantine, Monica Drake, Peter H. Fogtdal (in translation), Scott Nadelson, Toby Olson, Tom Spanbauer, and Richard Wiley, among others.

The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips wins the Barnes & Noble Discover Fiction Award!

04 March 2009

On March 4, 2009, Barnes & Noble announced the winners of the 2008 Discover Awards.

From the Judges: "The Well and the Mine is an enthralling book, enthralling in the best way, without a whiff of showoffy pyrotechnics or earnest sentimentality. Like Willa Cather's, Phillips' language is deep, clear, strong, and true; and her characters are at once interestingly familiar, human, refreshingly strange, and complex. The novel's structure is deceptively sophisticated -- the narrative flow is so compelling, it almost obscures the subtle technical skill that went into its making. The Well and the Mine is pure pleasure to read, and achieves the quietest but most rewarding of literary endeavors: a good story, well told. Gin Phillips is truly a great new American writer." --Kate Christensen, author of The Great Man

"The characters in The Well and the Mine are both complicated and sweet, but never saccharine or watered down with false naivety. While there's just enough intrigue in the plot to keep you turning the pages, it's the characters -- their voices, their kens -- that remain after the final page is turned. Phillips artfully engages wit the traditions of Southern literature but somehow remains fresh and original. A brilliant and memorable novel." --Mark Jude Poirier, novelist and screenwriter of Smart People

"I find it impossible to believe that The Well and the Mine is a debut novel. It's absolutely flawless: a beautiful Depression-era story told without irony. I reveled in its shades of Harper Lee and Faulkner. Timeless, captivating, honest, brave -- and not one false move. It changed me." --Suzanne Finnamore, author of Otherwise Engaged and Split

Monica Drake's Essay Stomping Ground in the new issue of The Northwest Review

17 November 2008

Get a copy here.

Poe Ballantine's Essay Wide Eyed in the Gaudy Shop from 501 Minutes to Christ is named as a "Notable Essay" by Best American Essays!

12 November 2008

Congratulations, Poe.

Gin Phillips' The Well and the Mine named as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Summer 2008 Selection!

15 May 2008

More information here.

Poe in the UK! Congratulations to Poe Ballantine!

23 July 2008

Oldstreet Publishing, a United Kingdom publisher, has purchased the rights to all four Poe Ballantine titles--God Clobbers Us All, Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire, Things I Like About America, and 501 Minutes to Christ. Congratulations to Poe!

Check out Oldstreet's website.

Clown Girl Wins Gold Medal Ippy Award!

09 June 2008

Monica Drake's Clown Girl won Story Teller of the Year from the 2008 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Find out more at the Ippy Website here.

Monica Drake's Clown Girl wins Eric Hoffer Award!

12 May 2008

The Eric Hoffer Award for Books offers a grand prize of $1,500 annually and separate distinctions for best academic, small, and micro press, best self-published book, and various winners in fourteen categories that cover the entire publishing spectrum. Category distinctions were awarded on three levels in descending order: Winner, First Runner-Up, and Notables. Finally, the Montaigne Medal was awarded to the most thought-provoking titles. You may visit www.HofferAward.com to view a PDF of our award mini-issue, which reflects the eventual coverage to appear in the anthology Best New Writing.

GRAND PRIZE * Thought to Exist in the Wild, Derrick Jensen, Photographs by Karen Tweedy-Holms, No Voice Unheard

ACADEMIC PRESS * Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, Karel van der Toorn, Harvard University Press

SMALL PRESS * Lasting Contribution, Tad Waddington, Agate B2 Books

MICRO PRESS * Clown Girl, Monica Drake, Hawthorne Books

Scott Nadelson wins Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction

19 March 2008

Congratulations to Scott Nadelson, whose book of short stories, The Cantor’s Daughter: Stories (2006), has been awarded the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction. The $5,000 award, conceived by its principal benefactor, Dr. Alexander Mauskop, a New York neurologist and member of Larchmont Temple in New York, assists promising Jewish fiction writers.

Check out an interview with Scott on the magazine's website.

Hawthorne Books launches new news, photo, and video blog!

01 December 2007

Hawthorne Books' new blog is located here. check it out!

Clown Girl by Monica Drake has been named as a 2007 Oregon Book Award finalist!

02 December 2007

Along with two other outstanding books by Oregon writers--Twenty Questions by Alison Clement and When All is Said and Done by Robert Hill--Clown Girl has been named a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award for the Novel. Winners will be announced at a ceremony on Sunday, December 2, 2007 at the Portland Art Museum.

For more information, please check out the Oregon Book Awards page at the Literary Arts website.

CONGRATULATIONS TOBY OLSON!

19 June 2007

Toby's Olson's PEN/Faulkner-winning novel, Seaview, wins Honorable Mention at the New York Book Festival.

June 23, 2007. Central Park from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held near the Naumburg Bandshell in the park. Author readings and signings, live music, clowns doing face-painting and balloon animals, book vendors, food and live music will be part of the day-long celebration of literacy and education.

Linked here.

CONGRATULATIONS SCOTT NADELSON!

15 June 2007

The Foundation for Jewish Culture recently announced Scott Nadelson as the 2007 recipient of Samuel Goldberg & Sons Foundation Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers. Nadelson joins an impressive roster of past winners including Nancy Reisman, Peter Orner, Lara Vapnyar, Gary Shteyngart, and Nathan Englander. A $2,500 prize is given to recipients as well as a week-long residency at the Ledig House International Writers’ Colony in New York’s Hudson Valley.

The prize, now in its eighth year, was the first award of its kind to highlight landmark works by contemporary writers exploring Jewish themes. The panelists, representing leaders in the literary field, include Peter Orner; Cindy Spiegel, head of the new Spiegel & Grau imprint at Random House; Neil Baldwin, former head of the National Book Awards; and former New Yorker essayist and cultural critic Daphne Merkin, who said this about picking the winner, “My first choice is The Cantor’s Daughter, which I found moving and original without being clearly derivative from any specific style.”

CONGRATULATIONS POE BALLANTINE!

04 June 2007

Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire wins bronze ForeWord's Book of the Year Award for Literary Fiction. To view the gold and silver winners and the honorable mention, go here.

Clown Girl goes to Italy!

04 April 2007

Italian publisher Neri Pozza has bought the rights to Monica Drake's Clown Girl and will publish the translation by the end of 2008.

Neri Pozza's site here.

Hawthorne Books Awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship 2007

21 February 2007

Literary Arts and the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts support and celebrate Oregon writers and publishers. Literary Arts has honored nearly 500 Oregon writers and publishers and distributed more than a half–million dollars in fellowships and awards.

Poe Ballantine included in Best American Essays 2006 anthology

30 September 2006

Lauren Slater, this year's Guest Editor of The Best American Essays 2006 (Houghton Mifflin), has chosen to include in the anthology Poe Ballantine's "501 Minutes to Christ" that originally appeared in The Sun (August).