This morning,
PEN America released the 2021 Literary Awards Finalists. More than forty-five imprints and presses are featured on the list, with half of the titles coming from university and indie presses. Twenty books are from writers making their literary debuts, and half the titles among the open-genre awards are poetry collections. Chosen by a cohort of judges representing a wide range of disciplines, backgrounds, identities, and aesthetic lineages, these fifty-five Finalist books represent a humbling selection of the year’s finest examples of literary excellence.
The stories on the Finalists lists are about parents, grandparents, and grandchildren, about siblings and their rivalries. These writers share the lives of people who are nonbinary and people who are transgender; people of all ages with changing bodies; immigrants and citizens and people seeking refuge; a basketball legend; a young woman who plucks factory chickens smooth; a tugboat driver; and Phillis Wheatley, Ame
This week on
The Write Question, poet and scholar Heather Cahoon talks about the ways her poetry and tribal policy intersect and how her new book of poetry,
Horsefly Dress, addresses issues of suffering, danger, and ultimately transformation.
About Heather Cahoon:
Heather Cahoon, PhD, earned her MFA in poetry from the University of Montana, where she was the Richard Hugo Scholar. She has received a Potlatch Fund Native Arts Grant and Montana Arts Council Artist Innovation Award. Her chapbook,
Elk Thirst, won the Merriam-Frontier Prize. Her roles at the University of Montana have included assistant professor of Native American studies and director of the American Indian Governance and Policy Institute. She is from the Flathead Reservation and is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.