Three finalists have been picked for 2012 Thurber Prize for American Humor, a list that includes two New Yorker writers and TV comedy tie-in book.

The finalists are: Nate DiMeo for Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, Patricia Marx for Starting from Happy and Calvin Trillin for Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff. The $5,000 prize and a commemorative crystal plaque honors the “outstanding book of humor writing” for the year, and is named after author James Thurber.

Here’s more: “The award is an annual prize and will be presented with the support of the Greater Columbus Arts Council at a ceremony at Carolines on Broadway on October 1. The host for the evening will be Randy Cohen, former ‘Ethicist’ columnist for the New York Times Magazine from 1999-2011, and author of the upcoming book, Be Good: How to Navigate the Ethics of Everything.”