Announcing the 2011 Literary Awards Festival Winners

PEN Center USA is proud to announce

THE 2011 LITERARY AWARD WINNERS

FICTION WINNER: JAMES FLEMING
Tengo Sed (University of New Mexico Press)

James Fleming is assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and an attending physician in the Emergency Department of the Veterans Administration hospital in Albuquerque.

POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA POETRY AWARD WINNER: CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ
from unincorporated territory [saina] (Omnidawn Publishing)

Craig Santos Perez is the co-founder of Achiote Press and author of from unincorporated territory [hacha], from unincorporated territory [saina], and several chapbooks. His poetry, essays, fiction, reviews, and translations have appeared in The Iowa Review, New American Writing, Pleiades, The Denver Quarterly, Jacket, Sentence, and Rain Taxi, among others. He received the Poets & Writers California Writer’s Exchange Award in 2010.

RESEARCH NONFICTION WINNER: IAN MORRIS
Why the West Rules - For Now (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Ian Morris is the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Professor of History at Stanford University and a Fellow of the Stanford Archaeology Center. He directs Stanford's archaeological excavations at Monte Polizzo, Sicily, and has published ten books. The eleventh, Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future, was published in 2010.

CREATIVE NONFICTION WINNER: GREGORY BOYLE
Tattoos on the Heart (Free Press)

Father Gregory "Greg" Joseph Boyle, S.J., is a Jesuit Roman Catholic priest. He is the director and founder of Homeboy Industries and former pastor of Dolores Mission Church. He is also a consultant to youth service and governmental agencies, policy-makers and employers, and serves as a member of the National Gang Center Advisory Board and the Advisory Board for the Loyola Law School Center for Juvenile Law and Policy in Los Angeles.

UC PRESS EXCEPTIONAL FIRST BOOK WINNER: SEBOUH DAVID ASLANIAN
From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (UC Press)

TRANSLATION WINNER: DAMION SEARLS
Jon Fosse’s Aliss at the Fire (Dalkey Archive Press)

Damion Searls is a translator from German, Norwegian, French, and Dutch and a writer in English. He has translated many of Europe's greatest writers, including Proust, Rilke, Robert Walser, Ingeborg Bachmann, Thomas Bernhard, Kurt Schwitters, Peter Handke, Jon Fosse, and Nescio, edited a new abridged edition of Thoreau's Journal, and produced a lost work of Melville's.

CHILDREN/YA LITERATURE WINNER: PAM MUÑOZ RYAN
The Dreamer (Scholastic)

Pam Muñoz Ryan is the NEA’s Author recipient of the Civil and Human Rights Award, and the Virginia Hamilton Literary Award for Multicultural Literature. She has written many books for young people, which range from picture books for the very young to young adult novels, including: Esperanza Rising, Becoming Naomi León, Riding Freedom, Paint the Wind, and her newest novel, The Dreamer, which has been awarded, among other accolades, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, The Pura Belpre Medal, and the PEN Center USA Award.

Other awards for various titles include the Pura Belpre Medal, the Jane Addams Peace Award, the Americas Award Honor, the Schneider Family Award, the Tomás River Award, the Siebert Honor and the Orbis Pictus Award. She was born and raised in Bakersfield, California, received her bachelor's and master's degrees at San Diego State University, and now lives in North San Diego County.

GRAPHIC LITERATURE WINNER: DANIEL CLOWES
Outstanding Body of Work in Graphic Lit

Daniel Clowes is the celebrated graphic novelist of Ghost World, Wilson, David Boring, and Mr. Wonderful. He is also an Academy Award nominated screenwriter and frequent cover artist for the New Yorker.

JOURNALISM WINNERS: PO BRONSON & ASHLEY MERRYMAN
“The Creativity Crisis” (Newsweek)

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s New York magazine articles on the science of parenting won the journalism award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Mensa Award, and a Clarion Award. Their articles for Time won the award for outstanding journalism from the Council on Contemporary Families. Their recent collaboration, the book NurtureShock, has been a New York Times bestseller and was featured on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Currently they are writing regularly for Newsweek.com.

DRAMA WINNER: TOM JACOBSON
The Twentieth-Century Way

Tom Jacobson has had more than 70 productions in Los Angeles and around the country. His adaptations SPERM at Circle X and THE ORANGE GROVE at Playwrights Arena were Critics Choice in the Los Angeles Times. He has been a co-literary manager of The Theatre @ Boston Court, a founding member of Playwrights Ink, artistic director of Ensemble Studio Theatre-LA, and a board member of Cornerstone Theater Company. He teaches playwriting and related courses for UCLA Extension.

SCREENPLAY WINNER: NICOLE HOLOFCENER
Please Give (Sony Classics)

Critically acclaimed writer-director Nicole Holofcener was born in New York City and moved with her family to Los Angeles in her teens. Her first feature, Walking and Talking, sold to Miramax at the Sundance Festival, and her second feature, Lovely & Amazing, was released by Lions Gate. She has since made Friends with Money and her latest is Please Give. Nicole has also directed several episodes of television shows, such as Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, and most recently, Bored To Death.

TELEPLAY WINNERS: DAVID SIMON AND ERIC OVERMYER
Treme, “Pilot Episode (Do You Know What It Means)”