Locals honored with book awards
Late October is proving to be awards season for one Seattle poet and three Seattle publishers.
Poet Judith Roche has won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for her collection, “Wisdom of the Body,” from Seattle publisher Black Heron Press.
Local publisher Fantagraphics Books has won an ABA for Brooklyn graphic novelist Gary Panter’s “Jimbo’s Inferno.” And an ABA went to University of Washington Press for Connecticut cultural analyst Jeffrey F.L. Partridge’s “Beyond Literary Chinatown.”
The American Book Award was created in 1978 to “provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community.” The prizes will be presented Dec. 2 in Oakland, Calif.
Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times book critic