More Literary Book Award Nominees Announced

This is one of those weeks when multiple awards nominees are announced or anticipation is building for winners to be declared. My previous post covered the 2015 Nebula Award nominees and this coming Sunday will be the Academy Awards ceremony when the Oscar winners are announced. The finalists for this year's Los Angeles Times BOOK PRIZES were announced Tuesday, February 23rd.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes,first awarded in 1980, honors literary excellence and celebrates the community of readers in Los Angeles. The prizes "... are judged by working writers, so in a very real sense they express the admiration of a community of peers. But even more, they tell us that reading is important, an essential way of connecting with, and understanding, the world in which we live."

The Book Prizes cover ten categories including Biography, Current Interest, Fiction, Graphic Novel/Comic, History, Mystery/Thriller, Poetry, Science & Technology, First Fiction (Art Siedenbaum Award) and Young Adult Literature. Other awards presented are the Robert Kirsch Award that recognizes the career and body of work of a living author whose work focuses on the West. Since 2009, an Innovator's Award has been given "which recognizes the people and institutions that are doing cutting edge work to bring books, publishing and storytelling into the future." 

The 36th annual ceremony will be held during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The Book Prize winners will be announced on Saturday, April 9 at Bovard Auditorium on the University of Southern California campus.