Bookish

A book blog with Maggie Galehouse

The great National Book Award screw-up

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Shine, by Lauren Myracle, is about hate crimes against gays.

I’ve been following this story for a few days, but if you click on the link at the bottom of this post, you can read it straight from the author/victim herself.

It’s incredible.

Long story short, Lauren Myracle, author of young adult novel Shine, got a call saying her book had been nominated for a National Book Award.

She was over the moon.

But then her book was un-nominated when it turned out that the judges had actually selected a book called Chime, by Franny Billingsley — not Shine. Turns out all the communications about nominees and books had taken place over the phone (for security reasons) and someone misheard the title. Oops.

You can’t make this kind of story up. And why would you want to? The plot is too lame.

Myracle wrote an essay about the sad and crazy tale of her nominated/un-nominated book. It’s worth a read.

Categories: Awards and whatnot
Maggie Galehouse | Books editor, features reporter

4 Responses

  1. JackR says:

    In this day and age, the telephone hardly seems like the most secure method.

  2. RealRick says:

    It seems the book company hired Emily Litella as a secretary.

    (For those too young to remember: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella)

  3. RealRick says:

    Sorry, try this link without the parentheses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella
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