Nominees for Connecticut Book Awards Named; Virtual Awards Event in October

The 2020 Connecticut Book Awards, a program of the Connecticut Center for the Book, an affiliate program of the Library of Congress and a core program of Connecticut Humanities, will be held virtually at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 15, 2020.

The Connecticut Book Awards recognize the best books of 2019 either about Connecticut or by authors and illustrators from Connecticut. Categories include: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Books for Young Readers. The awards honor the best books written in the past year that have specific ties to the state.

Awards will also include the Bruce Fraser “Spirit of Connecticut” Award. This special award is in memory of longtime Connecticut Humanities director Bruce Fraser and celebrates Connecticut’s sense of place.

To be eligible, the author or illustrator must be native-born or have been a legal resident of Connecticut for at least three years, or the book must have a Connecticut setting.

“These awards are a wonderful way to pay tribute to Connecticut’s talented literary community – past, present and future,” said Lisa Comstock, director of the Connecticut Center for the Book. Winners of all award categories will be announced at the event.

FINALISTS for 2020

Nonfiction

Motherland – Elissa Altman, Ballantine Books
Citizen Outlaw – Charles Barber, Ecco/HarperCollins
Sol LeWitt, A Life of Ideas – Lary Bloom, Wesleyan University Press
Ahab’s Rolling Sea, A Natural History of Moby-Dick – Richard J. King, The University of Chicago Press
Yale Needs Women, How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant – Anne Gardiner Perkins, Sourcebooks

Poetry

Without My Asking – Robert Cording, CavenKerry Press
Exuberance – Dolores Hayden, Red Hen Press
Peripheral Vision – Susan Kinsolving, Red Hen Press
mouthbrooders – Amy Nawrocki, Homebound Publications
Afterswarm – Margot Schilpp, Carnegie Mellon University Press
The Fire in Hand – Karen Torop, Antrim House

Fiction

The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna – Juliet Grames, Ecco/HarperCollins
How Fires End – Marco Rafalà, Little A
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press

Young Readers

Fiction

The Tornado – Jake Burt, Macmillan, Feiwel and Friends
New Kid – Jerry Craft, HarperCollins Children's Books
Ruby in the Sky – Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo, Farrar. Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
Searching for Lottie – Susan L. Ross, Holiday House

Nonfiction

Superlative Birds – Leslie Bulion, Peachtree Publishers, Inc.
What You Eat – Valorie Fisher, Scholastic
I See Sea Food, Sea Creatures that Look Like Food – Jenna Grodzicki, Lerner Publishing Group
Titan and the Wild Boars – Susan Hood, HarperCollins

Picture Books

Winter Cats – Janet Lawler, Author, Albert Whitman & Company
Esther’s Gragger: A Toyshop Tale of Purim – Martha Seif Simpson, Author, Wisdom Tales Press
The Night Is Yours – Abdul-Razak Zachariah, Dial Books for Young Readers

2020 Spirit of Connecticut Finalists

Nonfiction

Forever Seeing New Beauties, The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Williams – Eve M. Kahn, Wesleyan University Press

Fiction

Old Newgate Road – Keith Scribner, Alfred A. Knopf

Young Readers

Venture Smith's Colonial Connecticut – Elizabeth Normen, CT Explored

Poetry

The Breach – David Leff, Homebound Publications