Cabell Novelist Award seeks student reviewers
VCU students, faculty and staff have the opportunity to help in the selection of 2011’s VCU Cabell First Novelist Award recipient by reading and reviewing this year’s eligible books.
Danielle Elliot
Staff Writer
Nick Bonadies
Spectrum Editor
VCU students, faculty and staff have the opportunity to help in the selection of 2011’s VCU Cabell First Novelist Award recipient by reading and reviewing this year’s eligible books.
The nationally-recognized Cabell First Novelist Award annually recognizes a rising talent in the literary world who has successfully published their first novel. According to their website, the award celebrates the year-long novel workshop offered by VCU’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, which was “the nation’s first year-long novel workshop, and still one of the very few.” Nominations are solicited nationwide from noted publishers, editors and agents, as well as writers.
The 80 possibly award-winning titles are available for checkout in a shelf by the library circulation desk. Any library patrons interested in participating in the selection process, according to an entry on the VCU Libraries blog, can “just check out a book that looks interesting, read it and submit a review.”
The post adds that the available choices “represent a wide variety of authors and approaches to the art of the novel, so you are sure to find a book that speaks to you or that offers you something excitingly new.”
The voluntary reviews are used to narrow down the total list from 80 books to a short list of finalists, from which a panel of notable judges will select this year’s award recipient.
Among other considerations, reviewers are asked to evaluate the novels on criterion such as character, structure, story (“Is the ending satisfying – not predictable or a let-down?”) and artistry (“Does the novel embrace an ambitious artistic vision?”). Reviews will be accepted until Friday, March 25.
According to the Cabell First Novelist Award website, as-yet unspecified incentives are being offered for those reading and reviewing the most First Novelist hopefuls over the course of the semester.
The award, which was created in 2001 by VCU English professors Laura Browder and Tom DeHaven (also facilitator of VCU’s novel workshop), culminates every year in the Cabell First Novelist Festival, which “highlights the journey of the winning book from idea to publication,” according to the website. The winning author receives a $5000 cash prize. 2010’s winner, playwright and novelist Victor Lodato, was chosen for his novel “Mathilda Savitch” from over 130 contenders.
Deb Olin Unferth, who won the award in 2009 for her own debut novel “Vacation,” said the reward was “unique … (in that) the prize seems to involve so many people and to be fully integrated into the community. I think this speaks not only to the strength of the MFA program at VCU, but also to the rich literary tradition of the city. … I am supremely honored to have been a part of it.”
