'Byrd' wins Crook's Corner Book Prize: $1,000 and 365 free glasses of wine

Kim Church of Raleigh, author the poignant debut novel, "Byrd," has won $1,000 and a free glass of wine every day for a year at Crook's Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill. She's the winner of the second annual Crook's Corner Book Prize, announced Monday evening at the restaurant.
Novelist, short story writer and biographer Randall Kenan, who teaches English and comparative literature at UNC Chapel Hill, chose "Byrd" from a short list of four novels.
"All the books were beautifully written, interesting to read, and often fun," Kenan emailed today. "Byrd stood out as the most successful artistic expression and the novel with the purest, most daring and moving language.  Plus the story is so very powerful.  I think people will be reading this book for quite some time to come."
The 2014 inaugural winner was Wiley Cash of Wilmington for his novel "A Land More Kind Than Home." The judge was short story writer and novelist Jill McCorkle.
Next year's judge will be novelist Lee Smith.
The contest is open to first-time novelists whose work is set in the American South, though the authors can live outside the South.
Entries are now being accepted for the third annual Crook's Corner Book Prize. For more information: Info@crookscornerbookprize.com.

The Crook's Corner Book Prize Long List

Queen Sugar, by Natalie Baszile / A Pamela Dorman book/Viking
Byrd, by Kim Church / Dzanc Books
The Resurrectionist, by Matthew Guinn / W.W. Norton
Flying Shoes, by Lisa Howorth / Bloomsbury USA
Remember Me Like This, by Bret Anthony Johnston / Random House
I Shall Be Near To You, by Erin Lindsay McCabe / Crown
Heart of Palm, by Laura Lee Smith / Grove Press
In the Garden of Stone, by Susan Tekulve / Hub City Press
Saint Monkey, by Jacinda Townsend / W.W. Norton
The Ways of the Dead, by Neely Tucker / Viking
Mother of Rain, by Karen Spears Zacharias / Mercer University

The eleven books that made the Crook’s Corner Book Prize Long List were published between January 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014, and were selected from entries submitted by major publishers, independent publishers and self-publishers. The goal of the Crook’s Corner Book Prize is to encourage new writers.

Dine with these acclaimed novelists at Bibliofeast at Maggiano's on Oct. 13

Wiley Cash

There's a bit of magic when you meet the person who's created the novel or short story you fell in love with. It's like when you were six, and you happened on your first grade teacher in the grocery store. Not until that moment did you get it that she actually existed outside the classroom. And now, as an adult, you see that this writer, whose hand you are shaking, lives in a world as tangible as the one you inhabit.

You'll have the opportunity to enjoy that special magic at a Bibliofest, 6-9 p.m., on Oct. 13, when 10 well-known and highly praised writers join you for dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy at SouthPark in Charlotte.

There's not even the slightest catch. All you need is a ticket.
 
The event is sponsored by the local chapter of the Women's National Book Association, a group that brings together book lovers and book industry professionals who support reading and writing.

The line-up of authors is impressive: Wilmington's acclaimed Wiley Cash, author of the novel, "This Dark Road to Mercy";  Raleigh's Kim Church, author of a stunning first novel, "Byrd"; Charlotte's own Kim Wright, whose novel, "The Unexpected Waltz," swirls with suspense and details about Charlotte.

And a writer I've just discovered, Winston-Salem's Charlie Lovett, author of a brand-new, gorgeous book, "First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love and Jane Austen." And Decatur, Ga.'s Joshilyn Jackson, who wrote a page-turner of a novel about science and miracles, "Someone Else's Love Story."

Charlotte's own Erika Marks will be on hand. She gave us the taut novel, "It Comes In Waves," set on Folly Beach, S.C. And Wilmington's Rebecca Petruck, author of the popular "Steering Toward Normal," a middle school favorite. Also Allegra Jordan of Chapel Hill, whose lyrical war novel, "The End of Innocence," abounds with rich, historical detail. 

N.P. Simpson of Raleigh will be there. She gave us "B.O.Q.: An NCIS Special Agent Fran Setliff Novel," a military mystery set on Camp LeJeune. And Charleston's John Warley, whose novel, "A Southern Girl," is touted by Pat Conroy as the best book he's ever read about Charleston's "mysterious and glittering high society."

To Purchase Tickets:

$45 for members of The Women's National Book Association
$55 for non-members
www.wnba-Charlotte.org or purchase at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road, Park Road Shopping Center.

Deadline for ticket purchase: Oct. 10.
  



 

Debut novels set in the South

Is  your book club looking for excellent novels set in the South? Let me direct you to Crook's Corner Book Prize's longlist of 11 debut novels, published between Jan.1, 2013 and June 30, 2014.

One of my favorites, I'm happy to say, is on the list. It's "Byrd" (Dzanc Books) by Raleigh attorney Kim Church, the coming-of-age tale of Addie Lockwood whose failed abortion leads her to place her infant son with an adoption agency. Lockwood's longing is enduring and palpable, as is the longing of other characters for one another, present or not. "Byrd" is also on the longlist for the Flaherty Dunnan Prize, to be announced in September.

Among the other novels on the Crooks Corner list are "Flying Shoes" (Bloomsbury USA) by Lisa Howarth, a literary mystery set in Oxford, Miss.; "Heart of Palm" (Grove) a tale about loving things to death by Laura Lee Smith, set in the small town of Utina, Fla., between St. Augustine and Jacksonville; "The Ways of the Dead" (Viking), a story of race, crime, the law and the power of the media in Washington, D.C., by long-time Washington Post reporter Neely Tucker; and "In the Garden of Stone" (Hub City Press) by Susan Tekulve about the wave of Scilian immigrants who arrived in Bluefield, Va., in the 19th century.

Wilmington's Wiley Cash won the first annual prize in 2014 for his debut novel, "A Land More Kind That Home."

Modeled on the literary prizes of famous Parisian cafes, the Crook's Corner Book Prize is sponsored by the Crook's Corner Cafe and Bar in Chapel Hill. The shortlist will be announced in November, and the winner, who will receive $1,000 and a free glass of wine on each visit to Crooks Corner, will be announced in January.

The complete Crooks Corner list: http://crookscornerbookprize.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CROOKSBOOK_newsrelease_tuesday5th.pdf

A Great Reading List: The Long-List for a Prestigious First Novel Prize

The Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, started in 2006, recently released its long-list of first novels up for the award. The announcement grabbed my attention because it includes a 2014 favorite of mine -- the tender, achingly poignant first novel, "Byrd," by Raleigh lawyer Kim Church.
Among the 26 novels named, others with North Carolina connections include "Young God," by Wilkes County native Katherine Faw Morris; "The Word Exchange," by Durham native Alena Graedon; "The End of Always," by Chapel Hill's Randi Daveport; "The Invention of Exile," by Vanessa Manko, who graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and now  lives in Brooklyn; and "Life Drawing," by Robin Black, a graduate of Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers. Black lives in Philadelphia, and she is also the author of the prize-winning short story collection, "If I loved you, I would tell you this."
Another on the list I've put on my own reading list: "We Are Not Ourselves," by Matthew Thomas, 39, a former high school English teacher in New York City, who got more than a $1 million advance in this country and a six-figure UK deal at the London Book Fair after a bidding war over his 700-page manuscript, which took him 10 years to write.
Thomas is an Irish-American, who studied fiction with Alice McDermott at Johns Hopkins, after graduating from the University of Chicago. Set in the second half of the 20th century, the novel, says Publisher's Weekly, is a "sprawling portrait of the Irish-American Leary family -- Ed, Eileen and their son Connell -- as they move from Jackson Heights, Queens, to Bronxville, New York, in pursuit of the American dream." The book will be out in August.
The short-list for the prize will be announced in September, and thewinner in December. Stay tuned.

The Longing that Feeds Kim Church's "Byrd"

“Desire is not simple,” writes the poet Anne Carson.
Neither is longing, that dark river that runs through the heart of Kim Church’s first novel, “Byrd.”

Kim Church

We’ve already reviewed “Byrd,” but I couldn’t stop thinking about all the longing that fed that novel. “Byrd” is about 32-year-old Addie, who owns a bookstore in Raleigh, and, after a failed abortion, decides to surrender her baby for adoption. A baby she writes letters to for years, letters she’ll never send. Letters that will tear at your very fiber.
“Dear – What to call you? Almost-child? One who has taken root in me and won’t let go? One who might have been mine? Could still be, if I were brave enough?
“But I’m not. I can’t be the mother you deserve. I know this in the way other women know they’re meant to be mothers. I know from everything I have ever been or dreamed or wanted.”
The novel began as notes in 1998 and is not based on Church’s own experience
So I decided to ask Church, who grew up in Lexington, and lives in Raleigh where she works part-time as a lawyer: Where does all this longing spring from?
“Addie’s story is one of learning to accept and live with her own hard choices,” Church writes me. “For her, this is a slow, often painful process – much like the process of writing a novel, which involves learning to commit to choices and let go of fear, doubt, perfectionism, all those things that get in the way. It took me a long time to figure out and accept who I am as a writer.”
Church writes that she identified with Addie in other ways, too, which she says may get closer to the heart of my question.
“I’ve never been in Addie’s situation,” she says, “or had to confront her choices, but I do know how it feels to struggle with the decision over motherhood. Addie’s doubts and fears and what-ifs have personal resonance for me.”
Church told the News & Observer’s Andrea Weigl that the idea came from a dinner conversation years ago. One of the dinner guests, writes Weigl, was a man who casually mentioned that he had fathered a child who had been given up for adoption.
Weigl says Church recalled: “My thought was, ‘What about the mother?’ I felt sure this experience was not casual dinner conversation for her.’”

Church will read and sign copies of “Byrd” at 2 p.m., May 3, at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.