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42nd Annual Northern California Book Awards (SF Main Library)

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Saturday, September 30, 2023 - 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm | Cost: FREE*
*Free

San Francisco Library (Main) | 100 Larkin Street, Civic Center, San Francisco

Event Details

The 42nd
Annual Northern California Book Awards
Saturday, September 30, 2pm, free
Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library,
100 Larkin Street, Civic Center, San Francisco
Northern California’s vibrant literary scene is celebrated annually at the Northern California Book Awards, this year honoring published works of 2022 by Northern California authors and California translators. The Awards are presented by the Northern California Book Reviewers, Poetry Flash (Poetryflash.org), the San Francisco Public Library, and our community partners Mechanics’ Institute Library and Women’s National Book Association-San Francisco Chapter. The Booksmith, a San Francisco bookstore, will provide nominated books for sale and signing. A reception at the library will follow the ceremony.
Awards will be presented in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, Translation, and Children’s Literature.
FRED CODY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT & SERVICE
Brenda Hillman
Poet, educator, and activist, In a Few Minutes Before LaterNCBR GROUNDBREAKER AWARD
Litquake, accepted by Norah Piehl, Executive DirectorNCBR RECOGNITION AWARD
Illustrated Black History: Honoring the Iconic and the Unseen, George McCalman

POETRY
Martian: The Saint of Loneliness, James Cagney
Of Mineral, Tiff Dressen
Customs: Poems, Solmaz Sharif
Open Pit, Jose Antonio Villarán
As She Appears, Shelley Wong

FICTION
If I Survive You, Jonathan Escoffery
Forbidden City, Vanessa Hua
Divine Madness, Lynne Kaufman
What We Fed to the Manticore, Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
Nightcrawling, Leila Mottley

CREATIVE NONFICTION
Spy Daughter, Queer Girl: In Search of Truth and Acceptance in a Family of Secrets, Leslie Absher
How to Read Now: Essays, Elaine Castillo
The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Creativity: Where Poems Begin, Mary Mackey
Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life, Alice Wong

GENERAL NONFICTION
Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies, Lara Gabrielle
American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, Adam Hochschild
Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage, Nathalia Holt
Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman, Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert
Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University, Richard White

CALIFORNIA TRANSLATION
California Translation in Poetry
Fiat Lux, Paula Abramo, translated from the Spanish by Dick Cluster
It Must Be a Misunderstanding, Coral Bracho, translated from the Spanish by  Forrest Gander
A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts, Wang Yin, translated from the Chinese by Andrea Lingenfelter
California Translation in Prose
The Old Woman with the Knife, Gu Byeong-mo, translated from the Korean by     Chi-Young Kim
The Performance, Claudia Petrucci, translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Younger Readers
Ablaze with Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas, Jeanne Walker Harvey, illustrated by Loveis Wise
Eighteen Vats of Water, Ji-Li Jiang, illustrated by Nadia Hsieh
Listen to the Language of the Trees: A story of how forests communicate underground, Tera Kelley, illustrated by Marie Hermansson
Middle Grade
Undercover Latina, Aya de León
Wave, Diana Farid, illustrated by Kris Goto
Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration, Elizabeth Partridge, illustrated by Lauren Tamaki
Young Adult
No Stopping Us Now, Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Self-Made Boys, Anna-Marie McLemore
Mattie and the Machine, Lynn Ng Quezon
All My Rage, Sabaa Tahir

Northern California reviewers and editors, members of Northern California Book Reviewers, select the awards. Membership is open to all eligible Northern California reviewers and editors. All nominated books, the NCBR Recommended Reading List, will be acknowledged and celebrated at the ceremony. Judges’ statements by Northern California Book Reviewers will be available in the event program and on the NCBA page at Poetryflash.org.

For information, see http://poetryflash.org

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.


Cost: FREE*
*Free
Categories: **Annual Event**, *Top Pick*, In Person, Lectures & Workshops, Literature
Venue: San Francisco Library (Main)
Address: 100 Larkin Street, Civic Center, San Francisco