This 22nd edition is open for books published in 2021. Submissions will be accepted until January 15, 2022. 

We invite you to review the guidelines and complete the submission form using the link below. You will find some new elements this year:
In the Picture Book/Early Reader category, books are eligible if the writer OR illustrator is a current resident of MassachusettsWriting for adults or children that has been TRANSLATED by a Massachusetts resident is invited for a new category of achievement.We request one physical copy of the book for the first round of judgingMass Center for the Book has a new mailing address. Please update records so as to ensure timely delivery.

Click here to enter

Picture: Some of the winners and honorees of the 21st Massachusetts Book Awards

The post Call for submissions: 22nd Massachusetts Book Awards appeared first on Literary Massachusetts.

The Awards recognize achievement in five categories of literature written by current residents of the Commonwealth and published in 2020.

“The Massachusetts Book Awards is a perennial reminder of the enviable talent of the many writers living and working in the commonwealth,” said Sharon Shaloo, Executive Director of Massachusetts Center for the Book. “During yet another extraordinary year, the MassBooks are both timely and resonant.”

Here are the winners:

Fiction Award

Fiction Winner

The Bear (Bellevue Literary Press) by Andrew Krivak of Somerville. This fable about seeking harmony with nature by Earth’s last human inhabitants – a father and daughter – has lessons of love, loss, family and survival. 

Fiction Honors 

• Inheritors (Doubleday/Penguin Random House) by Asako Serizawa of Brookline 
• The Yellow Bird Sings (Flatiron Books/Macmillan) by Jennifer Rosner of Leverett

Fiction Long List

• The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey (Harper/HarperCollins)
• Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe (Lethe)
• Fabrications by Pamela Painter (Johns Hopkins UP)
• Impersonation by Heidi Pitlor (Algonquin Books)
• Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston (Tor/Macmillan)
• Monogamy by Sue Miller (Harper/HarperCollins)
• Popol Vuh by Ilan Stavans (Restless Books)
• The Resisters by Gish Jen (Knopf/Penguin Random House)
• Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin (Celadon Books/Macmillan)
• Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman (Ecco/HarperCollins)
• Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay (William Morrow/HarperCollins)

Non-Fiction Award

Non-Fiction Winner

How to Make a Slave and Other Essays (Ohio State UP) by Jerald Walker of Hingham. This collection of powerful essays about growing up, parenting and writing as a Black man in America deftly combines humor and anger in the author’s personal and cultural observations.

Non-Fiction Honors 

• Cross of Snow (Knopf/Penguin Random House) by Nicholas A. Basbanes of North Grafton 
• What Can a Body Do? (Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House) by Sara Hendren of Cambridge

Non-Fiction Long List

• Bright Precious Thing by Gail Caldwell (Random House/Penguin Random House)
• Demagogue by Larry Tye (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Finding Sanctuary by Barry Van Dusen (Mass Audubon)
• Full Dissidence by Howard Bryant (Beacon)
• A Furious Sky by Eric Jay Dolin (Liveright/Norton)
• Is Rape a Crime? by Michelle Bowdler (Flatiron Books/Macmillan)
• Money for Nothing by Thomas Levenson (Random House/Penguin Random House)
• The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart (Bloomsbury)
• Say I’m Dead by E. Dolores Johnson (Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review)
• The Smallest Lights in the Universe by Sara Seager (Crown/Penguin Random House)
• Spirit Run by Noé Alvarez (Catapult Books)

Poetry Award 

Poetry Winner

When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence) by Enzo Silon Surin of Swampscott. A debut collection about coming of age in New York during the 1990’s, it describes the poverty and violence of that time and place with eloquence and sensitivity.

Poetry Honors 

• Now It’s Dark (Wesleyan UP) by Peter Gizzi of Holyoke 
• Women in the Waiting Room (Black Lawrence) by Kirun Kapur of Amesbury

Poetry Long List

• Between Lakes by Jeffrey Harrison (Four Way Books)
• Field Light by Owen Lewis (Dos Madres)
• First Generation by Krikor Der Hohannesian (Dos Madres)
• Geode by Susan Barba (Black Sparrow/Godine)
• Land’s End by Gail Mazur (U of Chicago P)
• Listen by Steven Cramer (MadHat)
• Mesmerizingly Sadly Beautiful by Matthew Lippman (Four Way Books)
• On Earth Beneath Sky by Chath pierSath (Loom)
• Petition by Joyce Peseroff (Carnegie Mellon UP)
• Teaching While Black by Matthew E. Henry (Main Street Rag)
• Wonder and Wrath by A.M. Juster (Paul Dry Books)

Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature Award 

Winner

Flamer (Holt Books for Young Readers/Macmillan) by Mike Curato of Northampton. In this debut graphic novel, the author shares his own heartbreaking and triumphant personal journey with humor and compassion, offering hope for young readers struggling with self-discovery and acceptance.

Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature Honors

• The Degenerates (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster) by J. Albert Mann of Charlestown 
• Trowbridge Road (Candlewick) by Marcella Pixley of Westford

Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature Long List

• Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit (Bloomsbury)
• The Colossus of Roads by Christina Uss (Margaret Ferguson Books/Penguin Random House)
• Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon (Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Simon & Schuster)
• Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk (Dutton Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House)
• Illegal by Francisco X. Stork (Scholastic)
• The Maps of Memory by Marjorie Agosin (Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Simon & Schuster)
• Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner (Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan)
• Sources Say by Lori Goldstein (Razorbill/Penguin Random House)
• The Witches of Willow Cove by Josh Roberts (Owl Hollow)
• This Book Is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books/Quarto)
• Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles (Wednesday Books/Macmillan)

Picture Book/Early Reader Award

Picture Book/Early Reader Winner

Wherever I Go (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster) by Mary Wagley Copp of Westport. This fictional story of a family in a refugee camp in Ethiopia captures the innocence and joy of childhood while portraying the courage, hardship and dreams of refugees everywhere.

Picture Book/Early Reader Honors

• Seven Golden Rings (Lee & Low Books) by Rajani LaRocca of Concord 
• Zero Local: Next Stop: Kindness (Candlewick) by Ethan Murrow and Vita Murrow of Jamaica Plain

Picture Book/Early Reader Long List

• Be You! by Peter H. Reynolds (Scholastic)
• The Bear in My Family by Maya Tatsukawa (Dial Books/Penguin Random House)
• Cozy by Jan Brett (Putnam’s Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House)
• Geeger the Robot Goes to School by Jarrett Lerner (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster)
• Hound Won’t Go by Lisa Rogers (Albert Whitman)
• How Long is Forever? by Kelly Carey (Charlesbridge)
• I am the Storm by Jane Yolen & Heidi E.Y. Stemple (Rise x Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House)
• A Kid of Their Own by Megan Dowd Lambert (Charlesbridge)
• Lali’s Feather by Farhana Zia (Peachtree)
• River Otter’s Adventure by Linda Stanek (Arbordale)
• You’re Invited to a Moth Ball by Loree Griffin Burns (Charlesbridge)

Judges

The Judges for the 21st Annual Massachusetts Book Awards were:

• Rachel Alexander (Peabody Institute Library, Danvers)
• Cindy Erle (Shrewsbury Montessori School Librarian)
• Karen Kosko (Cambridge Public Schools Librarian, ret.)
• Amy Lewontin (Northeastern University Library)
• Michael J. Moran (Western Mass Library Advocates, Palmer)
• Katie Nelson (Beverly Public Library)
• Josh Newhouse (Bourne High School Librarian/Media Specialist)
• Molly Riportella (Walpole Public Library)
• J. D. Scrimgeour (Salem State University)
• Renee Wheeler (Leominster Public Library)
• Staff and Consultants of Massachusetts Center for the Book

The post 21st Massachusetts Book Awards winners announced appeared first on Literary Massachusetts.

The board is providing programs and services that will help their communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health designated twenty communities as hard hit by COVID, including Boston, Brockton, Chelsea, Everett, Fall River, Fitchburg, Framingham, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Leominster, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, Methuen, New Bedford, Randolph, Revere, Springfield, and Worcester.

According to the Department of Health website, “The 20 cities and towns are those hardest hit by COVID-19, taking into account case rates as well as the social determinants of health and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” adding, “Over centuries, discriminatory and exclusionary policies and practices have shaped where people live and work. These factors are part of the social determinants of health and directly impact residents’ health as well as their access to opportunities that promote health.”

A total of $975,000 was given to the twenty libraries, with nineteen receiving a requested $50,000, and one receiving a requested $25,000. This amount is over a quarter of the $3.5 million in ARPA funds that was given to the MBLC through IMLS. The money will be used for a variety of different projects that will help the library and town make the library more accessible, improve technology, undertake outreach services, offer career, skill, and language assistance to the public, provide opportunities to youth in the communities, and train library staff.

In addition to the communities hard hit by COVID, funding was also given to the Perkins Library, Worcester Talking Book Library (located inside the Worcester Public Library – pictured above), and Massachusetts Center for the Book. Each organization is receiving $50,000 and will use it to provide more programming, training, and outreach to residents of the Commonwealth.

Grant Highlights

Lawrence: Lawrence will use funding to complete the “Welcome Center,” a newly outfitted area of the Library with a new welcome desk, tables and chairs, software to effectively organize community resources for dissemination, programs for the community to engage with the Center and the marketing of those program, and childcare for parents who need to set up one on one appointments with a member of the team.

Leominster, New Bedford, and Springfield: These cities will purchase new Outreach Vans, an updated version of the Bookmobile. The vans will allow them to go to neighborhoods around the city and reach people who may not otherwise be able to access library services.

Brockton: Funds will be used to purchase an inflatable planetarium. The library will then create a lending program around it, which will enable elementary schools, middle schools, and organizations in the community to have access to planetarium technology as a community service of the Brockton Public Library.

The MBLC received American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) funding through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). IMLS is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s approximately 123,000 libraries and 35,000 museums. Their mission is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement. IMLS’ grant making, policy development, and research help libraries and museums deliver valuable services that make it possible for communities and individuals to thrive.

Picture: Worcester Public Library by Terageorge on Wikipedia – Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The post Massachusetts libraries receive pandemic recovery support appeared first on Literary Massachusetts.