Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 20, 1993 TAG: 9311200019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
A.R. Ammons won the poetry award for a collection titled "Garbage." He also won the award in 1973.
The National Book Foundation considered 609 books before paring down the field to the 15 finalists, said Neil Baldwin, the group's executive director. The finalists are all American citizens whose work was published since Dec. 1.
Each winner receives $10,000, and each finalist $1,000.
Vidal won the nonfiction award for "United States: Essays 1952-1992," picked over a Virginia man who wrote of his farm outside of Harrisonburg, Va., and its history during the Civil War.
Vidal did not attend the awards ceremony, but his publisher read a statement on his behalf.
"I am delighted that you've encouraged Random House to continue publishing 3 1/2 books by elderly writers," Vidal said.
Proulx said in a short acceptance speech that she was "speechless."
"There's a point in your life when you quit expecting wonderful and delightful things to happen to you, and I passed that point a long time ago," she told a cheering crowd of more than 500.
Going up against Proulx in the fiction category was the 1985 winner, Bob Shacochis, who was a finalist for "Swimming the Volcano."
Another fiction finalist was Thom Jones, a former Marine, boxer, janitor and advertising copywriter who wrote "The Pugilist at Rest."
One finalist was replaced before the award were presented. "Breast Cancer Journal: A Century of Petals," by Juliet Wittman, was removed from the competition because she author is a British citizen, said foundation spokeswoman Diane Osen.
The other fiction finalists were:
"Come to Me," short stories by Amy Bloom, a psychotherapist.
"Operation Wandering Soul," by Richard Powers, a MacArthur fellow.
The other nonfiction finalists:
"Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture," by Richard Leach.
"W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race 1868-1919," by David Levering Lewis.
"Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America," by Richard Slotkin.
"Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battleground," by Peter Svenson, which replaced the Wittman book as a finalist.
And the other poetry finalists:
"My Alexandria," by Mark Doty.
"The Vigil: A Poem in Four Voices," by Margaret Gibson.
"The Museum of Clear Ideas," by Donald Hall.
"What We Don't Know About Each Other," by Lawrence Raab, an English professor at Williams College.
by CNB