Just heard that The Mountain and the Fathers is a finalist for the 2013 Orion Book Award! Feeling very, very honored to be among such fine company and to be recognized by such esteemed judges and such a necessary magazine. Here’s the press release:
2013 ORION BOOK AWARD FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
March 27, 2013 – Great Barrington, MA – Each spring, just before Earth Day, an important book is presented with the Orion Book Award in recognition of its success in addressing the human relationship with the natural world in a fresh, thought-provoking, and engaging manner.
The five finalists for the 2013 Orion Book Award are:
• Apocalyptic Planet, by Craig Childs (Pantheon Books)
• Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper)
• Things That Are, by Amy Leach (Milkweed Editions)
• The Old Ways, by Robert Macfarlane (Viking)
• The Mountain and the Fathers, by Joe Wilkins (Counterpoint)
The winner will be announced during the second week of April, and the authors of all five books will receive a cash prize. Previous winning books include The View from Lazy Point, by Carl Safina (2012), The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, by Diane Ackerman (2008), and Insectopedia, by Hugh Raffles (2011).
This year’s selection committee includes National Book Award winner and celebrated essayistUrsula K. Le Guin; best-selling author of The Devil’s Highway and The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Luis Alberto Urrea; renowned book critic and founder of BookSlut.com, Jessa Crispin; author and Orion contributing editor Erik Reece; and Orion’s associate editor, Hannah Fries.
Books eligible for the 2013 Orion Book Award can be either fiction or nonfiction and are judged on how they deepen our connection to the natural world, whether they present new ideas about our relationship with nature, and the extent to which they achieve excellence in writing. Over two hundred books published last year were considered for the 2013 Award.
Orion is celebrating its thirty-first year of publishing a bimonthly magazine devoted to the need for ecological awareness and a new relationship between people and nature. It has won numerous awards, was a finalist for the National Magazine Award in 2010, and is based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
joewilkins.org 