2002 National Book Awards Winners 
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Biography
Julia Glass was
recently awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts
fellowship in fiction writing and has won several prizes
for her short stories, including three Nelson Algren
Awards and the Tobias Wolff Award. Collies, the
first part of Three Junes, won the 1999 Pirate's
Alley Faulkner Society Medal for Best Novella. Before
turning to fiction writing, Julia studied art and concentrated
on painting and drawing for several years, exhibiting
work at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the National
Academy of Design, among other venues. She also designs
and hooks rugs, some of which will appear in an upcoming
book. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Julia considers
herself a New Englander even though she has lived in
New York City for half her life. She lives there still,
with her family, and works as a freelance journalist
and editor.
Judges' Citation
Set on both sides of the
Atlantic during three fateful summers (1989, 1995, and
1999) in the lives of a Scottish family, this novel
explores love in its limitless forms: between husband
and wife, between lovers, between people and animals,
between parents and children. At turns suspenseful,
comic, and sad, these family members in inextricably
entwined lives try to make peace with the past and to
embrace the future. Read
Bob Shacochis' speech announcing the 2002 NBA Fiction
Winner as Julia Glass.
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Biography
A
graduate of Princeton University, Robert A. Caro
spent six years as an award-winning investigative
reporter for Newsday and was a Nieman Fellow
at Harvard University. To research his three-volume
The Years of Lyndon Johnson, he moved from his
native New York City to Texas Hill Country then to Washington
D.C. In 1975, he was a National Book Award Finalist
for The Power Broker, about New York City's public
works "czar" Robert Moses; and was a Finalist
again in 1983 for The Path To Power - the first
volume of his LBJ biography. Robert
Caro on the art of biography (Knopf).
Judges' Citation
In this,
the 1,152-page third installment of Robert Caro's biography
of the 36th president, Johnson's story is carried through
his 12 years (1949-1960) in the United States Senate.
Caro reveals how Johnson - in his ascent to the presidency
- triumphed in the Senate as no political leader before
him had ever done. And, in the telling, Caro also presents
a primer on how legislative power really works in America.
Read
Christopher Merrill's speech announcing the 2002 NBA
Nonfiction Winner as Robert Caro.
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B/W photos: S. Wavrick.
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Clockwise: Robert Caro at
the press reception; Caro at the Finalist Reading (photo:
S. Wavrick); Caro and his wife Ina at the press reception
(photo: R. Platzer/Twin Images). |
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Biography
Born in Roanoke, Virginia
in 1915, Ruth Stone is the author of seven other
books of poetry, including, most recently, The Second-Hand
Coat (1987), Who Is the Widow's Muse (1991),
Simplicity (1995), and Ordinary Words, which
won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1999. She
is the recipient of many honors, including the Academy
of American Poets Eric Mathieu King Award, the Pushcart
Prize, the Whiting Award, the Shelley Memorial Award from
the Poetry Society of America, and two Guggenheim Fellowships.
She raised three daughters alone while teaching creative
writing at colleges and universities across the U.S. She
lives in Vermont.
Judges' Citation
In
her eighth volume of poetry, Ruth Stone, an octogenarian
Vermonter, writes with wise intelligence, resolute passion,
and an earned knowledge about how the world really works,
drawing inspiration from science, politics, history, and
what she has come to know too well about love and loss.
Read
Dave Smith's speech announcing the 2002 NBA Poetry Winner
as Ruth Stone. |
B/W photos: S. Wavrick.
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Clockwise: Ruth Stone accepting
her Finalist medal from Neil Baldwin at the Finalist Reading;
Stone at the Finalist Reading; Stone delivering her acceptance
speech; Stone signing autographs at the post-party. B/W
photos: S. Wavrick. |
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Biography
Born in 1941, Nancy
Farmer grew up in a hotel on the Arizona-Mexico
border. She attended Reed College and was in the Peace
Corps in Africa from 1963 to 1965. Her previous books
include A Girl Named Disaster (a National Book
Award Finalist in 1996), The Warm Place (1995),
The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (1994), Do You
Know Me (1993), and three picture books for young
children. She lives with her husband in Menlo Park,
California.
Judges' Citation
A futuristic
adventure story about young Matteo Alacrán and
his struggle to understand his own existence. Matteo
is a clone, sharing identical DNA with the maniacal
El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium. Terror
and danger are constant companions where they live -
a strip of poppy fields between the United States and
what was once called Mexico. Read
Han Nolan's speech announcing the 2002 NBA Young People's
Literature Winner as Nancy Farmer.
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B/W photos: S. Wavrick.
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Clockwise: Nancy Farmer at
the Finalist Reading; Farmer (2nd from left) with other
YPL Finalists; Farmer delivering her acceptance speech;
Farmer (photo: R. Platzer/Twin Images). B/W photos: S.
Wavrick. |
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