The Community of Literary Magazines & Presses revealed the finalists for its Firecracker Awards, given annually to books published by independent presses.
In the creative nonfiction category, Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint made the shortlist for Names for Light: A Family History, published by Graywolf. Myint’s book was previously a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award.
Victoria Chang was named a finalist for Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief (Milkweed Editions), along with Caseen Gaines for Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way (Sourcebooks); Allison Cobb for Plastic: An Autobiography (Nightboat); and author Mariana Oliver and translator Julia Sanches for Migratory Birds (Transit).
Percival Everett was shortlisted in the fiction category for The Trees (Graywolf), a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award finalist. Also named finalists were Ethan Rutherford for Farthest South and Other Stories (A Strange Object), Kate Cayley for Householders (Biblioasis), Khadija Abdalla Bajaber for The House of Rust (Graywolf), and Celeste Mohammed for Pleasantview (Ig).
Making the poetry shortlist were Truong Tran for book of the other: small in comparison (Kaya), Divya Victor for CURB (Nightboat), Therese Estacion for Phantompains (Book*hug), Jennifer Jackson Berry for To Know Crush (YesYes), and Sophia Terazawa for Winter Phoenix: Testimonies in Verse (Deep Vellum).
The winners of the awards will be announced at a virtual ceremony on June 23. A full list of finalists is available here.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
