Two awards were also delivered at the celebration. Here’s more from the release: “[T]his year’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award is Joyce Carol Oates, announced by Kwame Anthony Appiah, president of PEN American Center, the 2008 Sandrof award winner. Winner of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, announced by former Balakian winner Albert Mobilio, is Joan Accocela.”

Here are the year’s finalists for Fiction. All finalists follow after the jump:
Bonnie Jo Campbell for “American Salvage” (Wayne State University Press)
Marlon James for “The Book of Night Women” (Riverhead)
Michelle Huneven for “Blame” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Hilary Mantel for “Wolf Hall” (Holt)
Jayne Anne Phillips for “Lark and Termite” (Knopf)

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

At last week’s glitzy National Book Awards (NBA) ceremony, the recession seemed far away. These celebrations create the illusion that some authors are beyond the everyday struggles of regular writers.

GalleyCat kept the bad economy front-and-center on the red carpet, quizzing the award-winning authors on their survival tips for aspiring writers. In this two-minute video, we collected the best advice from these NBA finalists: Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of “American Salvage;” YA finalist Rita Williams-Garcia, author of “Jumped;” fiction finalist Marcel Theroux, author of “Far North;” YA finalist Laini Taylor , author of “Lips Touch: Three Times;” poetry finalist Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, author of “Open Interval;” and nonfiction finalist Sean B. Carroll, author of “Remarkable Creatures.”

For more NBA coverage, check out our exclusive videos. We interviewed NBA fiction winner Colum McCann about New York City and grace. We also interviewed NBA nonfiction winner T. J. Stiles about his own struggles as a writer this year. Finally, we quizzed the nominees on Stephenie Meyer‘s bestselling Twilight Saga.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Washington Post Book World editor Ron Charles summed it up in this tweet: “AMERICAN SALVAGE (Wayne State) is the NBA’s version of last year’s NBCC-nominated BALLAD OF TRENCHMOUTH TAGGERT (W Va UP). The “Huh?” slot.” Journalist (and former GalleyCat editor) Sarah Weinman pointed out that Campbell may have “the greatest bio of a National Book Award finalist ever,” and we heartily agree.

Here’s an excerpt from Campbell’s intriguing backstory: “I’m a writer living in an unfinished house in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with my husband Christopher and other animals. I am six- feet tall and I drive a 1985 Chevy pick-up truck with a rebuilt 350 small-block engine. My first novel QRoad was released September 2002 and Kraftbrau Brewery in Kalamazoo has created a specialty beer, Q Brew, to celebrate the occasion.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The nonfiction finalists are:
David M. Carroll for “Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook” from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Sean B. Carroll for “Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species” from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Greg Grandin for “Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City” from Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt
Adrienne Mayor for “The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy” from Princeton University Press
T. J. Stiles for “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt” from Alfred A. Knopf

The rest of the nominees follow after the jump…

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.