Heartland Prize
Encyclopedia
The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize is a literary prize created in 1988 by the newspaper The Chicago Tribune. It is awarded yearly in two categories: Fiction
and Non-Fiction
. These prizes are awarded to books that "reinforce and perpetuate the values of heartland America."
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
and Non-Fiction
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
. These prizes are awarded to books that "reinforce and perpetuate the values of heartland America."
Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize — Fiction
- 2010: E. O. WilsonE. O. WilsonEdward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
, for Anthill - 2009: Jayne Anne Phillips, for Lark and Termite
- 2008: Aleksandar HemonAleksandar HemonAleksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American fiction writer. He is the winner of a MacArthur Foundation grant. He has written four acclaimed books: Love and Obstacles: Stories , The Lazarus Project: A Novel , which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle...
, for The Lazarus ProjectThe Lazarus Project (novel)The Lazarus Project is a novel by Bosnian fiction writer and journalist Aleksandar Hemon. It was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, and the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. It was the winner of the inaugural Jan Michalski Prize for Literature in 2010.-External links:*, book... - 2007: Robert OlmsteadRobert OlmsteadRobert Olmstead is an award-winning American novelist and educator.-Early life and education:Olmstead was born in 1954 in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. He grew up on a farm. After high school, he enrolled at Davidson College with a football scholarship, but left school after three semesters in...
, for Coal Black Horse - 2006: Louise ErdrichLouise ErdrichKaren Louise Erdrich, known as Louise Erdrich, is an author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American heritage. She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...
, for The Painted Drum - 2005: Marilynne RobinsonMarilynne Robinson-Biography:Robinson was born and grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho, and did her undergraduate work at Pembroke College, the former women's college at Brown University, receiving her B.A., magna cum laude in 1966, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her Ph.D...
, for GileadGilead (novel)Gilead is a novel written by Marilynne Robinson and published in 2004. It won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. The novel is the fictional autobiography of the Reverend John Ames, an elderly congregationalist pastor in the small, secluded town... - 2004: Ward JustWard JustWard Just is an American writer. He is the author of 17 novels and numerous short stories.-Biography:...
, for An Unfinished Season - 2003: Scott TurowScott TurowScott F. Turow is an American author and a practicing lawyer. Turow has written eight fiction and two nonfiction books, which have been translated into over 20 languages and have sold over 25 million copies...
, for Reversible ErrorsReversible ErrorsReversible Errors, published in 2002 is Scott Turow's sixth novel, and like the others, set in fictional Kindle County. The novel won the 2003 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction. The title is a legal term.... - 2002: Alice SeboldAlice SeboldAlice Sebold is an American novelist. She has published three books: Lucky , The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon .-Early life:...
, for The Lovely BonesThe Lovely BonesThe Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received much critical... - 2001: Mona Simpson, for Off Keck Road
- 2000: Jeffrey Renard AllenJeffrey Renard Allen-Life:He graduated the University of Illinois at Chicago, with a Ph.D.He teaches at Queens College, The New School for Social Research, and is a fellow at the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers....
, for Rails Under My Back - 1998: Jane HamiltonJane HamiltonJane Hamilton is an American novelist.Hamilton lives in Rochester, Wisconsin. She grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, the youngest of five children. She graduated from Carleton College in 1979 as an English major. Her first published works were short stories, "My Own Earth" and "Aunt Marj's Happy...
, for The Short History of a Prince - 1997: Charles FrazierCharles FrazierCharles Frazier is an award-winning American historical novelist.Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1973. He earned an M.A. from Appalachian State University in the mid-1970s, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University...
, for Cold MountainCold Mountain (novel)Cold Mountain is a 1997 historical fiction novel by Charles Frazier. It tells the story of W. P. Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate army near the end of the American Civil War who walks for months to return to Ada Monroe, the love of his life; the story shares several similarities with... - 1994: Maxine Clair, for Rattlebone
- 1993: Annie Proulx, for The Shipping NewsThe Shipping NewsThe Shipping News is a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning novel by American writer E. Annie Proulx which was published in 1993. It was adapted into a film of the same name, released in 2001.-Plot summary:...
- 1991: Jane SmileyJane SmileyJane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained an A.B. at Vassar College, then earned an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the...
, for A Thousand AcresA Thousand AcresA Thousand Acres is a 1991 novel by American author Jane Smiley. It won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1991 and was adapted to a 1997 film of the same name.... - 1990: Tim O'BrienTim O'Brien (author)Tim O'Brien is an American novelist who often writes about his experiences in the Vietnam War and the impact the war had on the American servicemen who fought there...
, for The Things They CarriedThe Things They CarriedThe Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990... - 1989: Kaye GibbonsKaye GibbonsKaye Gibbons is an American novelist. Her 1987 debut, Ellen Foster, received the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Special Citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, and the The Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Prize in Creative Writing from...
, for Ellen FosterEllen FosterEllen Foster is a 1987 novel by American novelist Kaye Gibbons. It was a selection of Oprah's Book Club in October 1997.-Plot introduction:The novel follows the story of Ellen, the first person narrator, a young white American girl living under unfavorable conditions somewhere in the rural... - 1988: Eric Larsen, for An American Memory
Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize — Non-Fiction
- 2010: Rebecca SklootRebecca SklootRebecca L. Skloot is a freelance science writer who specializes in science and medicine. Her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks , was one of the best-selling new books of the year, staying on the New York Times Bestseller List for over 32 weeks and optioned to be made into a movie by...
for The Immortal Life of Henrietta LacksThe Immortal Life of Henrietta LacksThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a non-fiction book by American author Rebecca Skloot. It is about Henrietta Lacks and the immortal cell line, known as HeLa, that came from her cervical cancer cells in 1951. The book is notable for its accessible science writing and dealing with ethical... - 2009: Nick RedingNick RedingNick Reding is a British actor. During a career of more than two decades, he is probably best known for playing PC Pete Ramsey in The Bill and DI Michael Conner in Silent Witness...
, for Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small TownMethland: The Death and Life of an American Small TownMethland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town is a book by Nick Reding which documents the drug culture of Oelwein, Iowa and how it ties into larger issues of rural flight and small town economic decline placed in the historic context of the drug trade... - 2008: Garry WillsGarry WillsGarry Wills is a Pulitzer Prize-winning and prolific author, journalist, and historian, specializing in American politics, American political history and ideology and the Roman Catholic Church. Classically trained at a Jesuit high school and two universities, he is proficient in Greek and Latin...
, for Head and Heart: American Christianities and What the Gospels Meant - 2007: Orville Vernon BurtonOrville Vernon BurtonOrville Vernon Burton is a professor of history at Clemson University and Director of the Clemson CyberInstitute. He was formerly Director of the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science and professor of History and Sociology at the University of Illinois He is also a...
, for The Age of Lincoln - 2006: Taylor BranchTaylor BranchTaylor Branch is an American author and historian best known for his award-winning trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and some of the history of the American civil rights movement...
, for At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968 - 2005: Kevin Boyle, for Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
- 2004: Ann PatchettAnn PatchettAnn Patchett is an American author. She received the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2002 for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include Run, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, and The Magician's Assistant, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize...
, for Truth and Beauty: A Friendship - 2003: Paul Hendrickson, for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
- 2002: Studs TerkelStuds TerkelLouis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.-Early...
, for Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith - 2001: Louis MenandLouis MenandLouis Menand is an American writer and academic, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Metaphysical Club , an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America....
, for The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in AmericaThe Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in AmericaThe Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America is a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 book by Louis Menand, an American writer and legal scholar... - 2000: Zachary KarabellZachary KarabellZachary Karabell is an American author, historian, money manager and economist.Karabell is President of , where he analyzes economic and political trends. He is also a Senior Advisor for Business for Social Responsibility...
, for The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election - 1998: Alex KotlowitzAlex Kotlowitz-Biography:Kotlowitz received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University and is an alumnus of the Ragdale Foundation. He currently lives with his family just outside Chicago in the suburb of Oak Park.-Writing:...
, for The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, A Death, and America's Dilemma - 1997: Thomas LynchThomas Lynch (poet)Thomas Lynch is an American poet, essayist, and undertaker.-Early life:Lynch was educated by nuns and Christian Brothers at Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Lynch then went to university and mortuary school, from which he graduated in 1973...
, for The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade - 1995: Richard SternRichard G. SternAmerican writer and educator, Richard G Stern was born in New York City on February 25, 1928. He attended the University of North Carolina from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in 1947...
, for A Sistermony - 1994: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., is an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual. He was the first African American to receive the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship. He has received numerous honorary degrees and awards for his teaching, research, and...
, for Colored People: A Memoir - 1992: William CrononWilliam CrononWilliam 'Bill' Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison...
, for Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West - 1991: Melissa Fay GreeneMelissa Fay GreeneMelissa Fay Greene is an American nonfiction author. A 1975 graduate of Oberlin College, Greene is the author of five books of nonfiction, a two-time National Book Award finalist, recipient of an honorary doctorate from Emory University in 2010, and a 2011 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of...
, for Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Non-Fiction - 1990: Michael DorrisMichael DorrisMichael Anthony Dorris was a prominent American novelist and scholar. During his career he presented himself as Native American and this identity was a key part of his professional activities and his public reputation; but its factuality is in doubt...
, for The Broken Cord: A Family's Ongoing Struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome - 1989:
- 1988:
- 1987: Don KatzDon KatzDonald Katz is founder and CEO of Audible, Inc. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Newark, NJ, Audible developed audible.com, the ecommerce web destination and the first system for distributing audio via the Internet for playback at or away from the PC. Audible also commercialized the first...
, The Big Store: Inside the Crisis and Revolution at Sears