25th Annual 2015 Literary Awards
Saturday, December 5, 2015, 2 PM – 5 PM
Oakland Public Library, Main Branch, 125 14th Street
Former California Poet Laureate Al Young and KPFA Cover to Cover host Jack Foley will emcee the awards. The ceremony, which will include brief readings by the winning authors, is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a reception and book signings.
PEN Oakland, founded in 1989, is a chapter of PEN USA and PEN International, begun in 1921. Dubbed “the blue collar PEN” by the New York Times, PEN Oakland annually sponsors the PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Book Awards, named for the late poet and faculty member of U.C. Berkeley’s English Department. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the awards. Each year PEN Oakland presents an award to outstanding book titles published in the previous year. The Awards were created twenty-four years ago to honor writers of exceptional works often not acknowledged by the mainstream literary community. Judged by respected writers, the awards honor books that both reflect a multi-cultural or marginalized viewpoint and represent the highest standards of literature.
THE 2015 PEN OAKLAND-JOSEPHINE MILES LITERARY AWARD WINNERS
Congregation by Natasha Trethewey
(Dryad Press and the William Meredith Foundation)
[Judge: E. Ethelbert Miller]
Haiti Glass by Lenelle Moise
(City Lights Books)
[Judge: devorah major]
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
(Graywolf Press)
[Judge: Jill Nelson]
Bless the Ashes by Peter Harris
(Tia Chucha)
Judge: Opal Palmer Adisa
Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, by Deborah A. Miranda
(Heyday Books)
[Judge: Clifford E. Trafzer])
An Indigenous History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
(Beacon Press)
[Judge: Nanette Deetz]
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CENSORSHIP & LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Lifetime Achievement Award:
Marvin X and Avotcja
Censorship Award:
Lincoln Bergman for Freedom Archives
For more information visit: www.penoakland.com