Fireworks for Festa del Redentore on Guidecca Island in Venice, July 20. Image – Getty: Damiano Pesaresi
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Three Books, Two Magazines Honored
As we work our way through a backlog of international book and publishing awards news—metering our contest coverage from world markets to one story per day—we look today at the 2024 Firecracker Award winners announced by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), a United States-based nonprofit organization supporting the work of small literary publishers.
This year, a winning book is awarded US$2,000, half of that going to the author or translator and half to the publisher. Each winner in a literary magazine category is awarded $1,000.
As Publishing Perspectives’ world industry readership knows, the US-based CLMP’s more-than 900 member-presses work in many formats: print and digital books, magazines, online publications, and chapbooks.
One of CLMP’s main efforts is to “increase the organizational capacity” of such publishers. In its mission statement, the organization (founded in 1967) says, “CLMP provides direct technical assistance to independent literary publishers and produces programs designed to bring the many communities our work touches together, including readers, writers, literary translators, booksellers, educators, and librarians.”
During the presentation of this year’s honors, Jim Perlman, founding editor and publisher of Holy Cow! Press in Duluth, Minnesota, was given this year’s Lord Nose Award, which recognizes lifetime achievement in literary publishing.
David Wilk, founder of the Lord Nose Award, writes, “Holy Cow! Press has been publishing books steadily for 47 years and counting. That’s an incredible accomplishment for any publisher, much less one that committed to literary work—poetry, short fiction, novels, biographies, memoirs, and anthologies.
“Jim Perlman and Holy Cow! exemplify what the Lord Nose Award is meant to recognize—a lifetime commitment to literary publishing, a willingness to break new ground, take chances, and stand up for overlooked voices.”
Jim Perlman created Holy Cow! Press in 1977.
2024 CLMP Firecracker Award Winners
The Firecracker Awards are given for independently published books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and for the best literary magazines in the categories of debut and general excellence.
Fiction
You Were Watching From the Sand
Short stories by Juliana Lamy
Red Hen Press
Jury comment:
“Juliana Lamy’s You Were Watching from the Sand is a commanding debut that mingles the magical with the mundane.
“These vibrant, masterfully wrought stories weave the otherworldly into the psychological and interpersonal, grounding Lamy’s characters not only in their unique voices, corporealities, and sense of place, but also in the complex racial and class dynamics that determine their lives.
“The language in this collection crackles with a propulsive energy, and there’s not a weak story to be found. Lamy’s impressive range is on full display; this is likely just the beginning of what looks to be a thrilling literary career.”
Creative Nonfiction
The Quickening: Antarctica, Motherhood, and Cultivating Hope in a Warming Worlds
By Elizabeth Rush
Milkweed Editions
Jury comment:
“The Quickening is an excellent chronicle of the deteriorating Antarctic glaciers at a critical crossroads with the author’s own reckoning with the ethics of bringing new life into a rapidly changing world.
“An incredible journey and an essential antidote to the settler masculinist-explorer narrative, The Quickening offers readers a chance to collectively refuse turning Antarctica into a passive symbol of the coming apocalypse.
“This is an inspiring document of an expedition powered by a deep understanding of the consequences that lie ahead. The book invites us, her readers, to turn and embrace hope.”
Poetry
The Limitless Heart
By Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Haymarket Books
Jury comment:
“The sublime and evocative work of Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is beautifully presented in this collection of new and previously published work.
“With expansive and intimate vision, Boyce-Taylor grapples with longing, grief, displacement, and motherhood among many other timely and engaging themes.
“Whether she’s reminiscing about the sensuous surroundings of her homeland or mourning the loss of her beloved son, the poems are always lyrical, vivid, each piece imbued with powerful affirmation and profound abundance.
“This collection is an astonishing achievement and beautiful gathering of a life’s work.”
Magazines: Debut
Swing (“New Writing That Moves You”)
Founded: 2023
Published by the nonprofit collective The Porch, Nashville
Jury comment:
“Swing has made a bold outing as a journal that gathers evocative, fine-tuned writing from the South and beyond.
“This debut issue is characterized by musical, deftly-formed poems, stories that conjure rich psychological and physical landscapes, and essays that embrace contradiction and irresolution.
“The editors’ thoughtful, and sometimes sly, juxtapositions of pieces made the journal a delight to read, and one in which questions of place, family, change, and uncertainty ripple through its pages.
“The journal drew us in with the clear and crisp design of its print volume and site, as well as its welcoming tone and ethos. Swing is a journal to read from front to back, and a testament to the literary community that its publisher, The Porch, has built in Nashville for years.”
Magazines: General Excellence
Words Without Borders
Founded: 2003
See also: Words Without Borders’ New Executive Director: ALTA’s Elisabeth Jaquette
Jury comment:
“Words Without Borders is a rare literary and cultural space where one can encounter writing from more than 140 countries.
“The work that Words Without Borders publishes reflects a radically capacious, global vision of literature, as well as an unstinting commitment to the art of translation and the precise, dedicated work of translators.
“The publication’s mission of making the world’s literature accessible to wider audiences is evident in its thoughtful curation of literature by country, theme, and contributor; its packages designed for the classroom; and the strong suite of accessibility tools on its site.
“Publishing translations can be complex and delicate work, and Words Without Borders has set the bar high with its steady output of compelling, politically trenchant, and varied work.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on children’s books is here, more on publishing and book awards is here, more from us on Vietnam’s market is here, and more on the publishing industry in Asia is here.
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