Three Academic Women Nominated for National Book Awards

The National Book Foundation has announced the finalists for its National Book Awards. There are five finalists chosen for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Of the 15 finalists in these three categories, five are women and three have current ties to the academic world. The winners of the National Book Awards will be announced on November 14 in New York City

Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and is director of political studies at the Legatum Institute in London. A native of Washington, D.C., she is a graduate of Yale University and studied at the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar. She is being honored for her book, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956. Her 2003 book, Gulag: A History, won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

Cynthia Huntington is a professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. She is a finalist in the poetry category for her book Heavenly Bodies (Southern Illinois University Press). Professor Huntington earned a master’s degree at Middlebury College.

Susan Wheeler is director of creative writing at Princeton University. She has previously taught at Columbia University, New York University, Rutgers University, and the University of Iowa. A graduate of Bennington College, Wheeler is being honored for her poetry collection entitled, Meme (University of Iowa Press).

Update: None of these women were selected as winners of a National Book Award.