March 31, 2020
Submissions are now open for next year’s Prize. Due to difficulties arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, the submission deadline has been extended to June 1, 2020. For details on how to submit, please visit our Submission Guidelines.
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Winner Announced for the 7th Annual Crook’s Corner Book Prize
January 7, 2020
DEVI S. LASKAR, CHAPEL HILL NATIVE, WINS $5000 CROOK’S CORNER BOOK PRIZE
Chapel Hill, NC, January 6, 2020—Devi S. Laskar’s The Atlas of Reds and Blues, published by Counterpoint Press, is the winner of the seventh annual Crook’s Corner Book Prize for best debut novel set in the American South.
This year’s judge was National Book Award-winning author Charles Frazier, who says, “I loved the very focused and concise ideas and dramatic situation, the efficient and effective structure, the strong and precise language.”
The Atlas of Reds and Blues grapples with the complexities of second-generation American life. Inspired by the author’s own terrifying experience of a mistaken police raid on her home, Devi S. Laskar’s debut novel explores, in spare and powerful prose, the ways in which racism permeates and pollutes the American dream. As the protagonist, known only as Mother, lies bleeding from a police gunshot wound in her Atlanta driveway, she revisits, in a time-bending mind-flash, her life as the successful child of immigrants from India, wife of a successful white businessman, and mother of three daughters.
Laskar is a native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and holds an MFA from Columbia University. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is an alumna of The OpEd Project and VONA. The Atlas of Reds and Blues is her first novel. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Crook’s Corner Book Prize, established as a collaboration between the iconic Southern restaurant, Crook’s Corner, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the Crook’s Corner Book Prize Foundation, was inspired by the prestigious book awards long given by famous “literary cafés”
in Paris.
Submissions are now open for next year’s Prize. For details, see the Submission Guidelines.
Media contact: Cindy Hamel, cindyhsellars@gmail.com, 917-544-1793.
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7th Annual Crook’s Corner Book Prize Shortlist Announced
September 10, 2019
CHAPEL HILL, NC – The Crook’s Corner Book Prize, awarded annually for the best debut novel set in the American South, has announced its Shortlist today. The winner will be chosen this year by National Book Award-winning novelist, Charles Frazier. The $5000 prize, inspired by the prestigious book awards given by famous Parisian literary cafés, is co-sponsored by the iconic Southern restaurant, Crook’s Corner, in Chapel Hill, NC.
“No one has a tougher time getting published and gaining recognition than first-time novelists,” says Anna Hayes, president of the Crook’s Corner Book Prize Foundation. “Our goal is to offer a timely boost to new talent.”
Although eligible books must be set predominantly in the South, the prize is open to writers from anywhere.
THE SHORTLIST
The Atlas of Reds and Blues
by Devi S. Laskar
(Counterpoint Press)
In a time-bending mind-flash as she lies bleeding from a police gunshot wound, the protagonist of The Atlas of Reds and Blues, known only as Mother, revisits her life as a successful immigrant to America from India. Devi S. Laskar is a native of Chapel Hill, N.C. She holds an MFA from Columbia University in New York, an MA in South Asian Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BA in journalism and English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sugar Land
by Tammy Lynne Stoner
(Red Hen Press)
In the Midland, Texas of 1923, a girl who falls in love with her best (girl)friend seeks sanctuary in the safest place she can think of, working at the Sugar Land Prison for men. Against the background of Texas from Prohibition through the civil rights era, she weds the prison warden, befriends legendary blues singer Leadbelly, and searches for the key to her own prison. Tammy Lynne Stoner was born in Midland, Texas and has been published in two dozen journals and anthologies. She is also the publisher of Gertrude, the longest consecutively published queer journal.
Lot: Stories
by Bryan Washington
(Riverhead Books)
Bryan Washington’s Houston, Texas doesn’t mention much about oil or pickup trucks. It’s about today’s Houston, a sprawling and multiethnic city in which a vibrant underclass is bouncing, sliding, and shooting the rapids of the American system as its people try to make a home in it. Family, community, love, work, and the human connections that make a life are Washington’s subjects. A resident of Houston, his fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times Style Magazine, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The Paris Review, Boston Review, Tin House, and more. He’s also the recipient of an O. Henry Award.
The winner will be announced on January 6, 2020. About the book prize.
Media contacts: Cindy Hamel at Cindy Hamel PR 917-544-1793 or cindyhsellars@gmail.com.
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