Crook’s Corner Longlist Announced

From the Crook’s Corner Book Prize press release:

CHAPEL HILL—The Crook’s Corner Book Prize Foundation announces its annual Longlist for best debut novels set in the American South. The $5,000 prize will be presented in January, 2018.

Modeled on the prestigious literary prizes given by famous Parisian café s such as the Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots, the award is co-sponsored by the iconic Southern restaurant, Crook’s Corner Bar & Café in Chapel Hill. In a tip of the hat to the Gallic source of inspiration, the winner is entitled, along with the cash award, to a free glass of wine every day for a year at Crook’s.

“That’s an idea we stole from the Flore in Paris,” says Anna Hayes, president of the Crook’s Corner Book Prize Foundation.

The goal of the prize is to encourage emerging fiction writers, who typically face some of the toughest obstacles in today’s publishing environment. Although eligible books must be set in the South, authors may live anywhere, and all genres of fiction except for Young Adult are eligible.

“We are always interested in fresh perspectives on the South,” says Hayes, “whether from a historical or modern point of view.”

The Shortlist will be announced in September. This year’s judge is author Elizabeth Cox, whose latest novel, A Question of Mercy, was published in 2016.

The longlist can be viewed here.

Previous winners include Wiley Cash, who will be the Keynote speaker at the 2017 NCWN Fall Conference, November 3-5 at the Holiday Inn Resort in Wrightsville Becah. Cash won the first Crook’s Corner Book Prize for his debut novel A Land More Kind than Home in 2014.