honors and awards

My devious plan to corrupt Southern youth proceeds apace:

“The purpose of the Georgia Peach Award is to highlight and promote the best current young adult literature for Georgia high school age students, to encourage young adults to read and to promote the development of cooperative school and public library services for young adults. Teens vote for their favorite books out of the year’s top 20 nominees at their high schools and local public libraries.”

Many thanks to the nominators, and congratulations to my fellow nominees:

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
Blood Brothers by S.A. Harazin
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters
Getting the Girl by Susan Juby
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Impossible by Nancy Werlin
Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger
Oh.My.Gods by Tera Lynn Childs
Ophelia: A Novel by Lisa Klein
Spud by John Van de Ruit
Three Little Words: A Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Wake by Lisa McMann
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Nice news to wake up to. Congrats to my fellow finalists:

Brian Aldiss, HARM
Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
Kathleen Ann Goonan, In War Times
Nalo Hopkinson, The New Moon’s Arms
Jay Lake, Mainspring
Ken MacLeod, The Execution Channel
Ian McDonald, Brasyl
Rebecca Ore, Time’s Child
Robert J. Sawyer, Rollback
Jose Carlos Somoza, Zig Zag
Sheri S. Tepper, The Margarets
Jeffrey Thomas, Deadstock
Robert Charles Wilson, Axis

Thanks to james_nicoll  for the heads-up.

On Saturday I was in Portland to receive a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award for Bad Monkeys. This is my second PNBA award—Set This House in Order won in 2004—and I’m pleased to report that the experience does not get old.

This year’s award plaques were designed by an artist named Jerril Nilson. How cool is this:

The book spines are from the other award winners—Lauren Kessler’s Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s,Jim Harrison’s Returning to Earth, Aryn Kyle’s The God of Animals, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke.

My thanks to the PNBA, Jerril Nilson, and Chris Erickson and Kimberly Ogden of the Heathman Hotel, which hosted the event.

I’m tied at #5 with Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and just up ahead at #3 is Joss Whedon with 8th season Buffy. Nice company to be in.

The online list is here, and Claude Lalumière has some nice things to say here. The February print edition of the magazine has more to say about all the recommendations.

Locus Online has also posted a tabulation of the SF, fantasy, and horror novels that were most frequently cited on other publications’ “Best of 2007” lists. Bad Monkeys squeaked onto that one, too.

In another pleasant Monday morning surprise, I just found out via sdn that Bad Monkeys has won an Alex Award. Congrats to my fellow winners:

Ishmael Beah for A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Conn Iggulden for Genghis: Birth of an Empire
Lloyd Jones for Mister Pip
Aryn Kyle for The God of Animals
Jeff Lemire for Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm
Lisa Lutz for The Spellman Files
Thomas Maltman for The Night Birds
Matthew Polly for American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China
Patrick Rothfuss for The Name of the Wind

The British Science Fiction Association have posted the current list of nominees for Best Novel of 2007, and I’m pleasantly surprised to see that Bad Monkeys is on it.