PEN USA 2009 Literary Award Winners

I'm a nut for award season. I don't really care all that much about reading the big award books - it is especially the case in kids' lit that a lot of the best stuff never gets recognized by the established, prestigious award groups - but, like one would keep track of the general top teams of the a current sports season, I like to stay aware of what's making the grade and getting those classy gold stickers.

The PEN USA Literary Awards are little more expansive than your run-of-the-mill accolades. Of course, they have major winners for fiction, two distinct lines of non-fiction, poetry, childrens, etc. But they also name winners for teleplay and screenplay, both categories delivering wins to very deserving works this time around
[though, of the two AMC programs, Mad Men is my favored].

Visit the website for more information on the 2009 Lit Awards.

PEN USA 2009 Winners:
Fiction - KIM BARNES • A Country Called Home (Alfred A. Knopf)
Creative Nonfiction - STEVE LOPEZ • The Soloist (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
Research Nonfiction - LESLIE T. CHANG • Factory Girls (Spiegel & Grau)
Poetry - SEIDO RAY RONCI • The Skeleton of the Crow (Ausable Press)
Children’s Literature - KATHI APPELT • The Underneath (Atheneum Books for Young
Readers)
Translation - MAXINE CHERNOFF & PAUL HOOVER • Selected Poems of
Friedrich Hölderlin (Omnidawn Publishing)
Journalism - KAREN OLSSON • Before and After (Texas Monthly)
Drama - MARISELA TREVINO ORTA • Braided Sorrow (El Centro Su
Teatro)
Teleplay - GEORGE MASTRAS • Breaking Bad: "Crazy Handful of Nothin’"
(Sony/Gran Via/Highbridge)
Screenplay - DUSTIN LANCE BLACK • Milk (Newmarket Press)

As far as awards go, my quick favorites are the Man Booker, Newberry, the Pen/Faulkner, and the Hugo. I also look forward to hearing about the Printz Award every year, but mostly to debate and disagree with their choices. They play it too safe.

Do you have any award favorites? Ones you look forward to hearing about as soon as award season starts?