The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

"The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award honors exemplary works of literature before the national community of Black writers. By honoring these nominees, we're recognizing the profound significance, necessity, and genius of Black writers and the stories they tell. A panel of published authors in each genre reviewed submissions and selected nominees from categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry.

"Winners will receive a cash award and the coveted statute of Djhuiti (je-hu-ty), the ancient Egyptian symbol of the patron saint of writing, speech, and divine intellectual pursuit. Finalists will receive an engraved plaque. The annual Legacy Award ceremony will be held November 10th at the historic Oxon Hill Mansion in Oxon Hill, Maryland near Washington, DC."

The nominees for this year's awards for Fiction, Poetry and Nonfiction have been announced:

Fiction:
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
Glorious by Bernice McFadden
How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story
How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique

Poetry:
Crave Radiance by Elizabeth Alexander
Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems by Thomas Sayers Ellis
Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

Nonfiction:
Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth by Ben Shapiro
John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard
The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 by Lawrence P. Jackson
Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation by Rawn James Jr.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams

More info: http://t.co/lQshJ6P

Thanks for putting this up Darryl. I checked out How to read the air from the library today, so we'll see it percolates to the top of the reading pile this weekend.

I want to read Warmth of other suns, but am not sure when that's going to happen . . .

I've only read How to Read the Air, which I received as an LT Early Reviewer book and enjoyed. I own Wading Home, Lighthead and The Warmth of Other Suns, and I'll almost certainly pick up How to Escape From a Leper Colony and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self very soon.

I enjoyed How to Escape from a Leper Colony although some of it became repetitive, and I have both How to Read the Air and The Warmth of Other Suns, although I haven't read them yet. Root and Branch sounds interesting too.

I loved The Warmth of Other Suns. Thanks for posting the list, Darryl. I want to find some of the fiction nominees.