On December 12, 2024, we came together for the 2024 Chicago Review of Books (CHIRBy) Awards, co-presented by StoryStudio Chicago and Exile in Bookville! Now in its ninth year, the CHIRBy Awards honor the best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and short essays and stories that feature Chicago and our literary community.
Congratulations to this year’s winners and to all of our incredible finalists!
(Read the shortlist here)
Fiction:
Hot Springs Drive
By Lindsay Hunter
Roxane Gay Books
Nonfiction:
The Night Parade
By Jami Nakamura Lin
Mariner Books
Poetry:
The Murmuring Grief of the Americas
By Daniel Borzutzky
Coffee House Press
Essay/Short Story:
“After 25 years of selling tamales in Chicago, an undocumented immigrant mother returns to Mexico without her family”
By Laura Rodríguez Presa
Chicago Tribune
The Adam Morgan Literary Leadership Award:
This year, the Adam Morgan Literary Leadership Award went to Parneshia Jones, acclaimed poet and director of Northwestern University Press, for her continued commitment to publishing thoughtful and uncompromising works of literature and redefining political writing and its possibilities to create change in our society.
A huge thank you to our co-sponsors StoryStudio Chicago and Exile in Bookville as well as this year’s judges, which included many of the Chicago Review of Books‘s editorial staff and representatives from Chicago’s independent bookstores:
Chair
Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief
Booksellers
- Rebecca George, Volumes Bookcafe
- Wayne Giacalone, Madison Street Books
- Sarah Hollenbeck, Women & Children First
- Stephanie Kitchen, City Lit Books
- Mandy Medley, Pilsen Community Books
- Javier Ramirez, Exile in Bookville
- Suzy Takacs, The Book Cellar
- Timothy Wurman, Three Avenues Bookshop
Chicago Review of Books Staff
- Ian Battaglia, Daily Editor
- Mandana Chaffa, Editor-at-Large
- Sara Cutaia, Editor-in-Chief at Arcturus Magazine and CHIRB Editor-at-Large
- Rachel León, Managing Director
- Adam Morgan, Founding Editor
- Reema Saleh, Daily Editor
- Victor Ladis Schultz, Daily Editor
- Jen St. Jude, Editor-at-Large
- Greg Zimmerman, Daily Editor & Roscoe Books Bookseller
