2022 Vermont Book Award Finalists Announced

Books by the 2022 Vermont Book Award finalists Credit: All images courtesy

The Vermont Book Award announced 14 finalists for its 2022 prize on Friday. Awards in four categories, each of which comes with $1,000, will be presented on Saturday, May 6, in the Alumnx Hall at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier.

Established in 2015 by the Vermont College of Fine Arts, the Vermont Book Award “is a literary prize that honors work of outstanding literary merit by Vermont authors and celebrates the long tradition of literature in the state,” the book award website says.

The 14 finalists were chosen from a field of nearly 50 nominees. Most finalists are seasoned writers, said book award coordinator Miciah Bay Gault, who revealed their names on Vermont Public’s “Morning Edition.” “So, for instance, Louise Glück is a finalist, who, of course, is a Nobel laureate and has so many revered books of poems out there,” Gault told Seven Days. “The book of hers that’s a finalist is in the fiction category. So that’s exciting.”

Kathryn Davis is a finalist in creative nonfiction. “I think she’s one of the more brilliant writers writing today in the world,” Gault said. “So it’s really exciting to see her book in the mix.”

The prizes are awarded in the spring for work published the prior calendar year. Books by writers who live in Vermont for at least six months of the year are eligible as long as their work is not self-published.

Vermont librarians and independent booksellers along with publishers are allowed to nominate work in four categories: creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry and children’s literature. Graphic literature may be entered in any of those categories. In the past couple of years, nominations have also been opened to the public for a short period, Gault said, a practice she hopes to continue. “I think it works well,” she said.

The judging panel, which changes each year, includes Vermont writers, teachers, librarians and “passionate supporters of literature,” according to the award website.

Following a two-year hiatus, the Vermont Department of Libraries and Vermont Humanities joined VCFA to administer the award. In the early years, VCFA honored finalists in each of the four categories but named just one overall winner. “That was an exciting, high-stakes prize,” Gault said, “but it was also close to impossible for the judges.”

The 2021 award named winners in fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry, and children’s literature could be nominated in any of those categories. Now, for the 2022 award, children’s literature is a separate category, and four winners will be named.

The Vermont Book Award “shines a light” on a book, Gault said, and focuses readers’ awareness on work they may have otherwise missed. Poet Kerrin McCadden won the first Vermont Book Award. “And I remember her telling us that she would be recognized, sometimes, on the street after that. People would say, ‘Aren’t you that poet?’ And she said, just to be recognized on the street as that poet, you know, is such an amazing feeling.”

Here are the 2022 finalists:

Creative nonfiction
• Nancy Marie Brown for Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland’s Elves Can Save the Earth
• Kathryn Davis for Aurelia, Aurélia
• Peter Orner for Still No Word From You: Notes in the Margin

Fiction
• Caren Beilin for Revenge of the Scapegoat
• Ann Dávila Cardinal for The Storyteller’s Death
• Louise Glück for Marigold and Rose
• Erin Stalcup for Keen

Poetry
• Rage Hezekiah for Yearn
• Carol Potter for What Happens Next Is Anyone’s Guess
• Bianca Stone for What Is Otherwise Infinite

Children’s literature
• Margot Harrison for We Made It All Up (young adult)
• Jo Knowles for Meant to Be (middle grade)
• Zoë Tilley Poster for The Night Wild (picture book)
• Leda Schubert for Firsts & Lasts: The Changing Seasons (picture book)

Disclosure: Margot Harrison is an associate editor at Seven Days.