Grub Street, the creative writing center in Boston, Mass., has announced its National Prizes:
Fiction: Alan Cheuse, novelist and NPR book commentator, for To Catch the Lightning (Sourcebooks). The head juror called the book a "lyrical, sprawling novel that weaves history and mythology into an entertaining portrayal of the renowned Native American photographer, Edward Sheriff Curtis."
Fiction finalists/honorable mentions: former Ploughsares editor Don Lee for Wrack and Ruin (Norton) and Nora Eisenberg for When You Come Home (Curbstone Press).
Nonfiction: Dinty W. Moore for his memoir, Between Panic and Desire (University of Nebraska Press).
Nonfiction finalist: Terese Svoboda for Black Glasses Like Clark Kent: A GI's Secret from Postwar Japan (Graywolf).
Poetry: Rebecca Seiferle for her collection Wild Tongue (Copper Canyon Press).
Poetry finalists: Ellen Bass for The Human Line (Copper Canyon), Cate Marvin for Fragment of the Head of a Queen (Sarabande) and Reginald Shepherd for Fata Morgana (University of Pittsburgh Press).
Each winner receives a $1,000 honorarium and a reading/book party at Grub Street's event space. The reading and party are co-sponsored by a local independent bookstore, which will sell books at the event. Fiction and nonfiction writers are also invited as guest authors to the "Muse and the Marketplace" literary conference.
The Grub Street Prizes go to authors who live outside New England and have published at least one book already.