BTW News Briefs

IPG Adds 23 Publishers

Independent Publishers Group (IPG) has added 23 independent publishers to its print and digital book distribution program.

Eight of the publishers will be distributed by IPG (Amazing People Worldwide, Mosaic Press, BQB Publishing, Diplomat Books, DreamTitle Publishing, Outlook Words & Art, Albert Whitman & Company, and BMG Books); four U.K. publishers will gain U.S. distribution through Trafalgar Square Publishing (Suitcase Media, Troika Books, Ragged Bears, and Dragonfly Group); six publishers are joining INscribe Digital (JMS Books, Pro Audio Voices, Stonesong Digital, Dudley Court Press, Davis Raynes Publishing Group, and Pressed Wafer); two academic presses will join Academic and Professional Publishing (Southeast Missouri State University Press and Bocconi University Press); one publisher will be distributed by Art Stock Books (modo Verlag); and two Spanish-language publishers will join IPG Spanish Books (Maximo Potencial and Nostra Ediciones: Panorama Editorial).

PGW to Distribute Canongate in North America

Publishers Group West (PGW) has announced that it is distributing the independent U.K. publisher Canongate Books in the U.S. and Canada as of June 1.

Canongate, based in Edinburgh, joins the Berkeley, California-based distribution company’s list of more than 100 independent client publishers. Canongate has published a diverse range of prize-winning and bestselling authors.

Canongate Books will launch in the North American market starting with the fall season, publishing a dozen new titles, including Rich Gekoski’s debut novel, Darke; The Art of Losing Control by Jules Evans; To the River by Olivia Laing; Jamie Catto’s Insanely Gifted and Undying; and Michel Faber’s first volume of poetry.

PEN International’s “Make Space” Campaign to Help Displaced Writers

PEN International has launched the Make Space campaign, a global campaign against racism and xenophobia backed by more than 200 leading writers and artists, including Ai Weiwei, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and Isabel Allende, the Guardian reported.

Over the next three years, the campaign will focus on writers who have been displaced through persecution and censorship and will aim to challenge stereotypes about asylum seekers. It will also attempt to address the hostility that exists towards refugees as well as the increasingly dangerous situations facing journalists and writers worldwide.

The project, which Rushdie called “a concerted effort from the heart of the literary industry to make opportunities for writers representative and fair,” will focus on events, publications, and advocacy, to be coordinated by PEN’s 144 centers around the world.

Winners of 2016 Reading the West Book Awards Announced

The winners of the Mountain and Plains Independent Booksellers Association’s (MPIBA) Reading the West Book Awards, awarded to books published in calendar year 2016, have been announced. The winners are as follows:

• Adult Fiction: News of the World by Paulette Jiles (HarperCollins Publishers/William Morrow)
• Adult Nonfiction: The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams (Macmillan/Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Sarah Crichton Books)
• Children’s: Runs With Courage by Joan M. Wolf (Sleeping Bear Press)

The winning authors will be recognized at the 2017 Mountains & Plains Fall Discovery Show’s Reading the West Book Awards Luncheon on October 14 at the Renaissance Denver Stapleton Hotel in Denver, Colorado.

Folio Prize Winner Announced

Hisham Matar was awarded the U.K.’s revamped Folio Prize for The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between, a memoir of his search, both physical and psychological, for his missing father.

The Rathbones Folio prize, previously known as the Folio Prize, is awarded to the best work of literature, regardless of form, written in English and published in a given year. This year, judges chose the winner from a shortlist of four novels and four works of nonfiction, all of which were nominated by members of the Folio Academy.

Matar received his prize of £20,000 at an awards ceremony held at the British Library in London on Wednesday, May 24. The ceremony was preceded by the Rathbones Folio Prize Shortlist Event at the British Library on Tuesday, May 23.

2017 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winners Announced

Winners were announced on May 31 for the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. A winner and two honor books were selected in each of three categories: nonfiction, fiction and poetry, and picture book.

First presented in 1967, the awards are among the most prestigious honors in the field of children’s and young adult literature. The winning titles must be published in the United States, but may be written or illustrated by citizens of any country.

This year’s winners are:

• Nonfiction Award winner: Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman (Godwin Books/Henry Holt/Macmillan)
• Fiction and Poetry Award winner: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)
• Picture Book Award winner: Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life, written and illustrated by Ashley Bryan (Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)

To see the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award honor books, visit the Horn Book website. The winners and honorees will be awarded at a ceremony on Friday, October 6, at Simmons College in Boston.

2017 O. Henry Prize Stories Announced

The O. Henry Prize Stories for 2017 were announced on LitHub on Thursday, May 25. Named after the American short story writer, the O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit published in U.S. and Canadian magazines and written in English.

This year’s O. Henry Prize stories are:

• “Too Good To Be True” by Michelle Huneven, Harper’s
• “Something for a Young Woman” by Genevieve Plunkett, New England Review
• “The Buddhist” by Alan Rossi, Granta
• “Garments” by Tahmima Anam, Freeman’s
• “Protection” by Paola Peroni, The Common
• “Night Garden” by Shruti Swamy, Prairie Schooner
• “A Cruelty” by Kevin Barry, Five Points
• “Floating Garden” by Mary La Chapelle, Salamander
• “The Trusted Traveler” by Joseph O’Neill, Harper’s
• “Blue Dot” by Keith Eisner, Salamander
• “Lion” by Wil Weitzel, Prairie Schooner
• “Paddle to Canada” by Heather Monley, Zyzzyva
• “A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness” by Jai Chakrabarti, A Public Space
• “The Bride and the Street Party” by Kate Cayley, Prism
• “Secret Lives of the Detainees” by Amit Majmudar, Kenyon Review
• “Glory” by Lesley Nneka Arimah, Harper’s
• “Mercedes Benz” by Martha Cooley, A Public Space
• “The Reason Is Because” by Manuel Muñoz, American Short Fiction
• “The Family Whistle” by Gerard Woodward, Zoetrope
• “Buttony” by Fiona McFarlane, The New Yorker

Anchor Books will publish all 20 stories in The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories annual anthology, edited by Laura Furman, in September.