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Penguin Group USA would like to congratulate Viking's, Ann Lauterbach, author of Or to Begin Again, a 2009 National Book Award Finalist in the Poetry division.

via www.nationalbook.org:

New York, NY (October 14, 2009) -The 20 Finalists for the 2009 National Book Awards were announced today, representing a diverse group of authors of varied background, writing style, setting, and theme. Judges recognized both well-known and lesser-known writers, including one debut fiction writer, three previous National Book Award Finalists, and only the second graphic novel chosen as a Finalist in the Awards' history.

Giving the Fiction list an international flavor, Finalists include Daniyal Mueenuddin, who splits his time between the United States and Pakistan, the Irish-born writer Colum McCann, and Marcel Theroux, who was born in Uganda, lives in London, and is the son of 1981 and 1983 National Book Award Finalist Paul Theroux. This is the third nomination for poet Carl Phillips, a Finalist in 1998 and 2004, the second for poet Keith Waldrop, a Finalist in 1969, and the second for Young People's Literature author Phillip Hoose, a Finalist in 2001. The nonfiction list includes biographies of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Mithradates and two books on the natural environment. For its Young People's Literature list, the judges broke with fiction's recent dominance by selecting two nonfiction books, the autobiographical graphic novel Stitches, and two works of fiction.