2016 Chicago Review of Books Awards

Every December, the Chicago Review of Books and the Chicago Independent Bookstore Alliance celebrate books published by Chicago-based writers with an awards ceremony at Volumes Bookcafe. Here were the winners and finalists for 2016.

Best Fiction

Abby Geni, The Lightkeepers (Winner, Counterpoint Press)
Jesse Ball, How to Set a Fire and Why (Pantheon Books)
Wes Chu, Time Siege (Tor Books)
Gina Frangello, Every Kind of Wanting (Counterpoint Press)
Mary Robinette Kowal, Ghost Talkers (Tor Books)
Christine Sneed, The Virginity of Famous Men: Stories (Bloomsbury)

Best Creative Nonfiction

Natalie Y Moore, The South Side (Winner, St. Martin’s Press)
Chris Abani, The Face: Cartography of the Void (Restless Books)
Ethan Michaeli, The Defender (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Toni Nealie, The Miles Between Me (Curbside Splendor)
Mary Wisniewski, Algren: A Life (Chicago Review Press)
Zoe Zolbrod, The Telling (Curbside Splendor)

Best Poetry

Abigail Zimmer, child in a winter house brightening (Winner, Tree Light Books)
Kevin Coval and Nate Marshall, 1989: The Number (Haymarket Books)
Tony Fitzpatrick, The Secret Birds (Curbside Splendor)
Phillip B. Williams, Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books)

Best Debut

Martin Seay, The Mirror Thief (Winner, Melville House)
Kim Brooks, The Houseguest (Counterpoint Press)
Jessica Chiarella, And Again (Touchstone Books)
Maryse Meijer, Heartbreaker: Stories (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Ada Palmer, Too Like the Lightning (Tor Books)
T. Sean Steele, Tacky Goblin (Curbside Splendor)

Judges for the 2016 Chicago Review of Books Awards included many representatives from Chicago’s independent bookstores:

As well as members of the Chicago Review of Books and Arcturus magazine editorial and contributing staffs: