John Gardner Fiction Book Award Finalist

My editor just wrote to me with exciting news.

HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE is a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. They haven’t posted the finalists to their web page yet, but past finalists/winners include Tobias Wolff and Jane Smiley.

John Gardner was a writer and professor; a couple of his most famous books for writers are: ON BECOMING A NOVELIST; ON MORAL FICTION; and THE ART OF FICTION; I think his best-known fiction work is GRENDEL (BEOWULF retold from Grendel’s POV). He taught creative writing at Binghamton University (who gives out this award) and taught Raymond Carver, among others.

The cat seems to be impressed. He stopped giving me the evil eye for putting flea medicine on him. He did not, however, like my victory lap around the house.

UPDATE:
Jonathan Franzen won for FREEDOM.

What great company!

The other finalists:
GIRL IN TRANSLATION by Jean Kwok
ALL IS FORGOTTEN, NOTHING IS LOST by Lan Samantha Chang
THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA by Minrose Gwin
MY BRIGHT MIDNIGHT by Josh Russell
THE THREE WEISSMANS OF WESTPORT by Catherine Schine

Published by Margaret Dilloway

Middle grade and women's fiction novelist. FIVE THINGS ABOUT AVA ANDREWS, (Balzer + Bray 2020); SUMMER OF A THOUSAND PIES. MOMOTARO: Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters (Disney Hyperion); TALE OF THE WARRIOR GEISHA and SISTERS OF HEART AND SNOW, out now from Putnam Books. HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE was a finalist for the John Gardner fiction award. THE CARE AND HANDLING OF ROSES WITH THORNS is the 2013 Literary Tastes Best Women's Fiction Pick for the American Library Association. Mother of three children, wife to one, slave to a cat, and caretaker of the best overgrown teddy bear on Earth, Gatsby the Goldendoodle. View more posts