Where Should We Announce the National Book Awards
Finalists This Year?

Each year in mid-October, the Foundation announces the twenty Finalists for the National Book Award in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. Since 2003, these announcements have been made by some of the country’s most acclaimed authors at institutions and venues that symbolize literary endeavor: Walter Mosley on the steps of the New York Public Library in New York City; Garrison Keillor at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota; John Grisham at William Faulkner's home in Oxford, Mississippi; Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights Book Shop in San Francisco; Camille Paglia at The Library Company of Philadelphia, and Scott Turow at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.

Where should we announce the Finalists in 2010?

KEY:
Blue dots = Locations we’ve visited before
Green dots = Locations suggested by the public.

Make another suggestion at nationalbook@nationalbook.org.

View NBA Finalist Announcement Locations (Past) in a larger map

List of Suggested Locations (alpha by state):

Alabama

• Birmingham Jail or the Civil Rights Museum
• Monroeville, County Courthouse
• Tuscumbia, Helen Keller's birth home

California

• Danville, Eugene O'Neill's Home
• Los Angeles Public Library
• Monterey, Robinson Jeffers Home/Library
• Pasadena, Vroman's Bookstore
• San Diego
• San Francisco, Gates of Chinatown
• Salinas, National Steinbeck Center

Colorado

• Denver, Poet Jake Adam York at Lighthouse Writers
• Denver, The Tattered Cover Bookstore

Connecticut

• Madison, RJ Julia Bookstore
• Hartford, Mark Twain House

Florida

• Coral Gables
• Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Home
• Key West, Hemingway Hang out
• Key West
• Key West, Cormac McCarthy at Captain Tony's Bar
• Delray Beach

Georgia

• Atlanta
• Atlanta, Margaret Mitchell's House
• Milledgeville, Andalusia, Flannery O'Connor's Farm
• Savannah, Flannery O'Connor's Childhoood Home

Illinois

• Chicago
• Chicago, Steppenwolf Theatre

Indiana

• Indianapolis, Big Hat Books

Kansas

• Wichita, Watermark Books

Maryland

• Rockville
• Baltimore, Poe House and Museum
• Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe's Grave

Massachusetts

• Amherst, Emily Dickinson's Home
• Boston Athenaeum
• Boston Latin School
• Boston Public Library
• Concord

Michigan

• Detroit

Mississippi

• Jackson, Eudora Welty's home
• Oxford, Square Books

Missouri

• Kansas City Public Library
• Kansas City Headquarters
• Hannibal
• St. Louis Public Library
• St. Louis, Left Bank Books

New York

• Brooklyn Academy of Music
• Far Rockaway, Queens Library
• Tarrytown, Sunnyside Estate, Washington Irving's home
• New York City, by John Peter Zenger's grave.  He was interred in lower Manhattan in Trinity Church's cemetery. 
• New York City, announce each category from a different indie bookstore.

North Carolina

• Durham, WUNC (Public Radio)
• Raleigh, Wake County Public Library

Ohio

• Lucas, Malabar Farm State Park
• Cleveland, East 86th Street, house of where Langston Hughes grew up
• Columbus Metropolitan Library
• Columbus, Thurber House

Oregon

• Portland, The Benson Hotel
• Portland, Frank Mansion at Lewis and Clark College
• Portland, Oregon Convention Center
• Portland, Powell's Bookstore
• Reedsport Public Library

Pennsylvania

• Darby Public Library
• Philadelphia

Tennessee

• Nashville Public Library

Texas

• Houston Public Library System
• El Paso

Vermont

• St. Johnsbury Athenaeum
• Montpelier, Vermont College of Fine Arts (in honor of Norma Fox Mazer)

Virginia

• Charlottesville, Edgar Allan Poe's Dorm Room
• Charlottesville, Thomas Jefferson, Monticello
• Woodbridge, Steps of an average American public library, such as the Potomac Library

Washington

• Seattle, San Francisco, Elliot Bay Bookstore
• Seattle, Richard Hugo House or Town Hall or, Benaroya Hall
• Seattle Public Library

Washington, D.C.

• The Great Hall of the Folger Library
• Historic Sixth Street Synagogue
• Library of Congress Center for the Book
• Lincoln Memorial
• Library of Congress
• The Reading Room of the Library of Congress
• National Gallery
• Politics & Prose Bookstore
• Supreme Court
  

Locations of Prior Announcements and Writers who have made the Announcements:

• 2003 - Steps of the New York Public Library - announced by Walter Mosley
• 2004 - Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota - announced by Garrison Keillor
• 2005 - William Faulkner's home in Oxford, Mississippi - announced by John Grisham
• 2006 - City Lights Book Shop in San Francisco, California - announced by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
• 2007 - The Library Company of Philadelphia - announced by Camille Paglia
• 2008 - Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago - announced by Scott Turow
• 2009 - eblast and via www.nationalbook.org