The nominees:
Rawi Hage, De Niro’s Game
Vincent Lam, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures
Pascale Quiviger, The Perfect Circle
Gaetan Soucy, The Immaculate Conception
Carol Windley, Home Schooling
Category / Awards
Updike to Trade In Comfy Sofa for Expensive Davenport
John Updike has won the $30,000 Rea Award — an award granted to “a living American or Canadian writer who has made a significant contribution in the discipline of the short story as an art form.” It’s good to see that the Dungannon Foundation has gone out of its way to honor a writer who truly needs more cash and awards. It is rumored that Mr. Updike’s interior designer will apply these funds to the east wing living room.
No Booker Love for Mitchell This Year
At long last, the Booker Shortlist has been announced. And David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green didn’t make the cut. Also stubbed out: Peter Carey. Personally, I pin the blame on Fiona Shaw for this great oversight.
Then again, one must question an organization that actually considered DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little as an exemplar.
The shortlist, which is truly a collection of surprises, is as follows:
Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss
Kate Grenville’s The Secret River
M.J. Hyland’s Carry Me Down
Hisham Matar’s In the Country of Men
Edward St Aubyn’s Mother’s Milk
Sarah Waters’s The Night Watch
Harvey Award Winners
Heidi McDonald offers a Baltimore Comic-Con report and reveals this year’s Harvey Award Winners:
Best Writer: Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Marvel Comics
Best Artist: J.H. Williams III, Promethea, ABC/Wildstorm/Dc Comics
Best Cartoonist: Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16, Acme Novelty Library
Best Letterer: Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16, Acme Novelty Library
Best Inker: Charles Burns, Black Hole #12, Fantagraphics Books
Best Colorist: Laura Martin, Astonishing X-Men, Marvel Comics
Best Cover Artist: James Jean, Fables, DC/Vertigo
Best New Talent: R. Kikuo Johnson, Night Fisher, Fantagraphics Books and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Marvel Knights Four, Marvel Comics (tie)
Best New Series: Young Avengers, Marvel Comics
Best Continuing or Limited Series: Runaways, Marvel Comics
Best Syndicated Strip or Panel: Maakies, Tony Millionaire, Self-Syndicated
Best Anthology: Solo, DC Comics
Best Graphic Album–Original: Tricked, Top Shelf
Best Graphic Album–Previously Published: Black Hole, Pantheon Books
Best Single Issue or Story: Love And Rockets, Volume 2, # 15, Fantagraphics Books
Best Domestic Reprint Project: Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, Sunday Press Books
Best American Edition of Foreign Material: Buddha, Vertical Books
Best Online Comics Work: American Elf, James Kochalka, www.americanelf.com
Special Award for Humor in Comics: Kyle Baker, Plastic Man, DC Comics
Special Award for Excellence in Presentation: Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, Sunday Press Books
Best Biographical, Historical or Journalistic Presentation: Comics Journal, Fantagraphics Books
Next Up: Karl Rove Presenting an Award to Michael Bay
BBC: “Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is to be honoured in Washington for his contribution to American culture….US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will present the award at a ceremony on 1 December.”
If “contribution to American culture” is a term of art for “bombastic assault on theatrical restraint,” then I suppose it’s earned.