Breaking news from Book Expo: Selzer wins another award!

Seems like only yesterday we were announcing that Richard Selzer's Knife Song Korea won an Independent Publisher Book Award (in fact, it was just last week). Just moments ago, we received word from our people at Book Expo that it's also been awarded the 2009 Editor's Choice Award for Fiction by Foreword Magazine! Congratulations are once again in order for Richard.

Selzer Novel Wins Award

The 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards were recently awarded, and Knife Song Korea has tied for silver in the category of Literary Fiction. Congratulations to author Richard Selzer and to all of the other award winners!

Check out the full list of award winners.

ForeWord Book of the Year Finalists

Congratulations to authors Richard Selzer, Joe Amato, and Eve Pell. Their books were recently name ForeWord Book of the Year Finalists!

2009 Finalists in Fiction - Literary Category

Knife Song Korea, by Richard Selzer

2009 Finalists in Autobiography/Memoir Category

Once an Engineer, by Joe Amato

We Used to Own the Bronx, by Eve Pell

The 2009 Book of the Year Award winners will be announced on May 25 at a ceremony at BookExpo America. The winners are being selected by a panel of librarians and booksellers.

 

ForeWord's Book of the Year Awards program was designed to discover distinctive books from independent publishers across a number of genres. The Awards program often serves to provide these worthy projects with a second wind of publicity.

Critics' Pick for 2009: Knife Song Korea

Congratulations are in order for Richard Selzer, whose novel Knife Song Korea was named one of the California Literary Review's Critics' Picks for Best Books of 2009. Here's a snippet of the glowing review:

“...a number of novella’s are among the classics of U.S. literature: Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men, and Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus to name just three. Knife Song Korea may come to join that distinguished collection. It is a lapidary work of exceptional artistry as well as a valuable addition to the body of notable works by physician-writers.” — California Literary Review

Check out the Review's full list of top books for 2009 (you'll find Knife Song Korea on the fiction list, just below Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice), then read the entire book review.

Interview with Troy native and author Richard Selzer

The Albany Times Union recently ran an interview with Troy, NY native and SUNY Press author Richard Selzer.

In his letters, Selzer refers to his native city as "my beloved Troy," and still considers himself a Trojan even though he has lived in New Haven, Conn., for 50 years. A retired surgeon and professor of surgery at Yale, the author published his first book of essays about medicine in 1973. Locally, he may be best-known for his 1992 memoir, "Down From Troy", in which he draws the city in luscious glory.

Selzer's two new books include the novel Knife Song Korea, which details a tumultuous year in the life of a young surgeon during the Korean War, and Letters to a Best Friend, a collection of correspondence between he and writer, actor, painter, and filmmaker Peter Josyph.