Barnes & Noble Announces the Finalists for the 2009 Discover Great New Writers Awards:

Fiction
Barb Johnson, More of This World or Maybe Another (HarperPerennial)
Victor Lodato, Mathilda Savitch (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
C. E. Morgan, All the Living (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Nonfiction
Dave Cullen, Columbine (Twelve)
Toby Lester, The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America Its Name (Free Press)
Neil White, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir (William Morrow)

The Jurists
Two panels of distinguished literary jurists (each of whom was selected for the Discover program earlier in their careers) selected the finalists and will select the winners. Serving as this year’s fiction jurists are Kathryn Harrison, the author of numerous books, including the novels Thicker Than Water, Envy, and The Seal Wife, and the memoirs The Kiss and The Mother Knot; Stewart O’Nan, the author of a dozen novels, including Snow Angels, Last Night at the Lobster, and A Prayer for the Dying, among other books; and fiction writer David Schickler, the author of Kissing in Manhattan and Sweet and Vicious.

This year’s nonfiction judges include Lee Martin, author of the memoirs, From Our House and Turning the Bones, and several works of fiction, including The Bright Forever, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Rachel Simon, whose works include a novel, The Magic Touch, and two memoirs, Riding the Bus with My Sister, and Building a Home with My Husband; and Danielle Trussoni, whose memoir, Falling Through the Earth, was named one of the best books of 2006 by the New York Times, and whose first novel, Angelology, will be published in March.

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