Graywolf Press adds to its honors

Graywolf Press publisher Fiona McCrae and executive editor Jeff Shotts were in the audience last night when poet Mary Szybist won the National Book Award for her Graywolf book, "Incarnadine," a collection of poems about the Annunciation.

Szybist thanked Graywolf, among others, in her brief, fervent acceptance speech, praising the press for handling her book with such care.

This is the first National Book Award won by a Graywolf author, though there have been finalists (Carl Phillips, Salvatore Scibona and Deborah Baker). Graywolf writers have won, in recent years, most major literary prizes, including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Award, and the National Book Critics Circle award.

" 'In­car­na­dine' is a mar­vel of a book, a­bout the many ways we en­coun­ter the world and the world en­count­ers us," Shotts, who edited "Incarnadine," said in an interview when the book was short-listed.

Other winners last night include "The Thing About Luck," by Cynthia Kadohata, for Young People's Literature; "The Unwinding," by George Packer, for Nonfiction; and "The Good Lord Bird," by James McBride, for fiction.

You can read five poems from "Incarnadine" on the Graywolf website here.

Twin Cities poet Matt Rasmussen was a finalist for "Black Aperture," his collection of poems about his brother's suicide. The book also won the Walt Whitman Award. Last night's ceremony was broadcast live on C-Span 2 and you can watch it on the National Book Foundation website here.