Carolyn Howard-Johnson Calls for Nominations for Her Sixth Annual Literary Award

Praised or maligned, the Nobel Prize for Literature is always news. It selects the best from the world and therefore misses much of value. Carolyn Howard-Johnson, “Back to Literature” columnist for MyShelf.com, closes the gap (only slightly) with her an annual “Noble (Not Nobel!) Prize for Literature.”

Over the last years the Nobel committee has recognized authors for their literary expertise but there has also been a trend toward awarding the prize for, as Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Tim Rutten says, “an author’s particular relevance to the moral moment in which the world finds itself.”

Howard-Johnson’s prize therefore concentrates on books that address these same issues. For her Noble Prize (as opposed to the NOBEL prize), Howard-Johnson considers books written in English (which narrows the field of prospects considerably) because Nobel has rather neglected writers who write in English over the years and because that is the language in which she . . . .ahem, reads, at least well enough.

Howard-Johnson’s lists have included well-known authors who explore discrimination in their writing like Toni Morrison and Ralph Ellison but she tries to concentrate on authors who have not been posted to bestseller lists or won major awards. Some past winners are LA's Leora G. Krygier and Randall Sylvis, New York's Leora Skokin Smith, Australia's Bob Rich and Magdalena Ball.

Books nominated for the 2007 Noble Prize for Literature must be submitted by Sept 15, 2007. Published books and chapbooks of poetry, plays and literary novels are eligible., but may have been published in any year. Results are published each January on the "Back to Literature" page at www.MyShelf.com and on Howard-Johnson's New Book Review blog (www.thenewbookreview.blogspot.com). Query Carolyn Howard-Johnson at HoJoNews@aol.com . Please put "NOBLE PRIZE QUERY" in the subject line. The prize is honorary only, no monies or gifts. Readers may nominate their favorite books and authors may nominate their own.

Howard Johnson is no stranger to literary prizes. Her first, This Is the Place, won the Reviewers’ Choice Award after it was published in 2001 and went on to win seven other awards. A chapter from the book was a finalist in the Masters’ Literary Award and another was selected for inclusion in The Copperfield Review. Her book of creative nonfiction, Harkening, has won three awards, her Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't was USA Book News' Best Professional Book of 2004 and the Irwin Award. Her chapook of poetry, Tracings, was named "Top 10 Reads for 2004" by The Compulsive Reader and given the Military Writers' Society of America's Award of Excellence. She is also an instructor for UCLA Extension's renowned Writers' Program.

Learn more about Howard-Johnson at http://CarolynHoward-Johnson.com. Her efforts are sponsored by Editor Brenda Weeaks at MyShelf.com.

Howard-Johnson's "Back to Literature" column may be found at http://myshelf.com/backtoliterature/column.htm, where book covers and comments on the winners are posted.

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