James McBride, Jesmyn Ward, and Elizabeth Acevedo are among the nominees for this year’s NAACP Image Awards, given annually by the civil rights organization to “outstanding achievements and performances of people of color” in film, television, music, and literature.
McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the winner of last year’s Kirkus Prize, was nominated in the fiction category, alongside Ward’s Let Us Descend, a Kirkus Prize finalist, and Acevedo’s Family Lore. Also nominated in the category were Lola Akinmade Åkerström’s Everything Is Not Enough and Sadeqa Johnson’s The House of Eve.
In the biography/autobiography category, the nominees were Maya Moore Irons and Jonathan Irons’ Love & Justice, Rich Paul’s Lucky Me, Nicole Waters’ Nothing Is Missing, Tanisha C. Ford’s Our Secret Society, and Stephen A. Smith’s Straight Shooter.
Nominated in the debut author category were Ani Kayode Somtochukwu for And Then He Sang a Lullaby, Kim Coleman Foote for Coleman Hill, Krystle Zara Appiah for Rootless, Kleaver Cruz for The Black Joy Project, and Breanne Mc Ivor for The God of Good Looks.
In the youth/teens category, the nominees were Isi Hendrix for Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans, Kelly J. Baptist for Eb & Flow, Aleema Omotoni for Everyone’s Thinking It, Khadijah VanBrakle for Fatima Tate Takes the Cake, and Camryn Garrett for Friday I’m in Love.
The winners of the awards will be announced at a televised ceremony on March 16. A full list of nominees is available at the Image Awards website.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
