Book Critics Circle Award Finalist From University Press

EVANSTON, Ill. --- “Olives,” a collection of poems by A.E. Stallings published by Northwestern University Press under their TriQuarterly Imprint, was named a finalist yesterday (Jan. 14) for a 2012 National Book Critics Circle award (NBCC). The prestigious book awards each year honor the best literature published in the nation in six categories. Stallings is a finalist in the field of poetry.

“With the National Book Award and the Pulitzers, the National Book Critics Circle awards are the “big three” prizes in literature,” said Jane Bunker, Northwestern University Press director. The last Northwestern University Press poet to capture an NBCC award was Pamela White Hadas for “Self-Evidence,” a collection of poetry.

Stallings received a MacArthur Fellowship -- commonly known as the MacArthur “genius” award -- in fall 2011. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a James Dickey Prize, the 2004 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award and a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her poetry has been published in TriQuarterly, The Atlantic and Poetry magazines and in “The Best American Poetry” anthologies of 1994 and 2000.

Stallings first book of poetry, “Archaic Smile,” published in 1999, won the Richard Wilbur Prize.  Her second, “Hapax,” was published by Northwestern University Press, and awarded the 2008 Poets’ Prize.