The finalists for the 2009 National Book Awards have been announced by the National Book Foundation. For the children's literature category the finalists are:
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Henry Holt)
Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar Straus and Giroux)
David Small, Stitches (W. W. Norton & Co.)
Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic) Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)
The winner will be announced at the 60th National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony in New York City on Wednesday, November 18th.
You can find out more about the awards and the National Book Foundation on the NBF website.
Michelle and Lauren, our fabulous Publicity Assistants, attended 5 Under 35 earlier this week. Below they tell us all about the event.
For the past few years, the National Book Foundation has kicked off National Book Awards week with “5 Under 35” —a celebration of five fresh and exciting writers under the age of 35.
This year, authors Joshua Ferris, Jonathan Franzen, Francine Prose, Mary Gaitskill and Jim Shepard—all former National Book Award Fiction Finalists—each selected a young fiction writer “who they found particularly promising.” Respectively, they chose Matthew Eck, Keith Gessen, Sana Krasikov, Nam Le, and Fiona Maazel. Each author read from their most recent book to a captive audience of friends and interested writers, editors, publishers, journalists, and bloggers at the Tribeca Cinemas bar the night of Monday, November 17.
Each previous Fiction Finalist introduced their Under 35 choice with glowing recommendations and amusing anecdotes. Joshua Ferris, in fact, joked that he had originally wanted to pick Philip Roth. “Why don’t we call it 5 Under 35 Times 2 Plus 5?” he asked. But after listing all of Roth’s awards, Ferris decided, “To hell with him. That’s enough!” 
Also attending the event was musician Dean Wareham, who MC’d, and journalist/writer/pop-culture expert Chuck Klosterman—the night’s DJ extraordinaire. Chuck’s job seemed to consist of hanging out in the DJ loft (read: corner) and looking down curiously at the crowd of people squinting back up at him, his head and beard playing camouflage against the red walls and lights of the venue.
Some of the featured novels fell into category of so-called “slacker fiction”—stories of lackadaisical college years, creative oppression, and distinct antipathy towards the publishing industry, or as the literary hero of Gessin’s slacker protagonist quips: “the publishing inertia.” 
Author Nam Le’s piece featured a 20 something male slacker, also by the name Nam, who is seriously suffering from writer’s block in his last year of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. In the midst of his character’s frustration, Le deftly satirizes a literary community and industry that encourages writers to find what makes them both “stand out” and fit into the genre of the moment. “Ethnic literature’s hot” says a visiting literary agent. As Le read to a crowd akin to the antithesis of his fictional self, the paradoxical nature of the situation was only heightened by Le’s disclaimer, spoken with a facetious but equaling endearing grin: “the views and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the author.”
Young writers tell us in an explicitly subterranean way: I am not a niche! But as history has shown, not wanting to be a niche seems to always become a movement in itself. What makes this select group of five stand out from the next generation of anti-establishment artists is their extraordinary ability to render the usual realities of youth—war, romance, integration, dreams of our hero’s approval—as new, visceral, and with intelligence that is neither earnest nor loquacious, but genuine and humble.
The first picture is of Michelle and Chuck Klosterman. The second picture is of Lauren and Nam Le.
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBeacon Broadside · Columbia University Press Blog · Harvard University Press Publicity Blog · Indiana University Press Blog · MIT Press Log · NYU Press Blog · Off the Page · Penn Press Log · Princeton University Press Blog … [...]
Wow leveling, Warcraft power leveling, Cheap WoW Power Leveling Store
we professionally focused on providing wow powerleveling service and offers 24/7 non-stop power
leveling service. With the quickest speed and best service we will satisfy your powerleveling
aspiration for your game. We only employ the most professional players and assign only those familiar buy WOW Gold
with your specific class to play your characters. So your character can be leveled by our professional
players who are expert in World of Warcraft,We have helped thousands of players reached their desired
levels at their appointed time. In addition, we have a strong credit standing and the safety of your
account will be protected forever. Our motto is “Do what you wish!”.And our high quality service, good
reputation and competitive price will make you enjoy your purchase from us.
NOTE:We use real players (WOW Power Leveler) to level your character, ALL HAND MADE. Your account
will be safe and secure,GUARANTEED.
Non-stop service is a fast powerleveling that from the order confirmed to the end time you required.
The merits are:fastest,unnormal and cheapest. You will find an expected surprise after finishing the
service,In order to avoiding something unnomal happened, please do not change your password or login Wow power leveling
by yourself,your friends or any other people. when we are playing for you . If that ,we will not
undertake the loss and disputation .
Part time service is we will not keep your powerleveling for 24 hours, we can do it within the time
you offered. For example: you require us do it during the time (24:00-8:00) you are sleeping, we ca
not do it during any other time except the one you offered , until finish your powerleveling. The
adventage of this is not only you could play the game, but also can keep the speed of powerlevling
when you are not online. At the same time, In order to keep the speed and the security of your
powerleveling, we want to say “please do not play game or change your password when we are playing it
for you”. If that ,we will not undertake the loss and disputation .
cheapest World Of Warcraft Power Leveling service
Compared with part time service, Variable Time Service is more flexible. You need not worry about
your labour union activity or being logout when you are playing with your friend.Do not even worry
about the trouble logined by yourself and our guys at the same time. Opposite,you can play your game
for a whole weekend and holidays with nobody interrupt you. The advantage of variable time service is power leveling cheap
you could check your order at our powerleveling report ,and sent SMS to break off our service by
pressing “pause”.we promise we will logout within 10 minutes.in order to insure your successful
logining. In the same way, you could let us start your powerleveling when you are tired or you do not
play the game. we will go on it within 10 minutes.
Our 24 hours online service makes that your problem can be resolved at any time.