Johannes Lichtman was born in Stockholm and raised in California. He holds an MFA in fiction from University of North Carolina Wilmington and an MA in literature, culture, and media from Lund University. His work has appeared in The Sun, Tin House, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Oxford American, and elsewhere. He lives in Portland. Such Good Work is his first novel.
Oren J. Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association (ABA) since 2009, was the recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 2019 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Recognizing the key cultural and economic role that independent bookstores play in their communities, the ABA provides information, education, business tools, programs, and advocacy for local businesses across the country, working to strengthen and expand independent bookstores nationwide, efforts which Teicher has effectively spearheaded. Appointed to the position of Associate Executive Director of the ABA in 1990, Teicher, who will retire at the end of 2019, has also served as Director of Government Affairs, founding President of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, and as ABA’s Chief Operating Officer.
Best known for his portrayals of gay American life in both fiction and nonfiction, Edmund White’s body of work spans subject and genre, including a biography of French writer Jean Genet, for which he won the National Book Critics Circle Award; a trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony; pioneering works of nonfiction like The Joy of Gay Sex, the travel memoir States of Desire, and the National Book Critics Circle Award–nominated City Boy; and many other titles.
Sandler won the Young People’s Literature award for 1919: The Year That Changed America(Bloomsbury Children’s Books, Bloomsbury Publishing).
Judges’ Citation:
Martin W. Sandler’s riveting work of nonfiction, 1919 The Year That Changed America, focuses on one year of turbulence and its far-reaching aftermath. Sandler’s evocative language brings 1919 to life for young readers, showing us the impact of that crucial year on major issues like race relations, women’s rights, and climate change. This carefully researched and curated work strikingly demonstrates the interconnected nature of history–as it happens and its rippling consequences for years to come.
