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State writers up for national prize


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It was a great day Wednesday for books created in Washington.

Timothy Egan of Seattle and Jess Walter of Spokane were among the 20 finalists announced for the 2006 National Book Awards. A book by Copper Canyon Press of Port Townsend is also a finalist.

Egan's "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl" was one of five finalists in non-fiction. Walter's "The Zero" was one of five finalists in fiction and one of three finalist works (two fiction, one non-fiction) that deal with the aftermath of 9/11.

Both Egan and Walter were shocked to have their works included in such select national company. The two state writers are Spokane natives, which caused Egan to quip, "This is the best day for Spokane since Bing Crosby gamboled around town."

Egan, a onetime Seattle P-I reporter who is now a Pulitzer Prize-winning enterprise reporter for The New York Times, says he is "totally flabbergasted" to be a finalist. He said his Dust Bowl narrative's inclusion is a vote of confidence "for those who pursue the small stories of history -- this is a tale of little old men and ladies who could die any day now and their stories would be long gone."

Egan, 51, also was gratified because another book writer had researched doing a Dust Bowl book before Egan's, but decided against it because he questioned the value of the story at this time.

As Egan said, "I went there on my first exploratory mission and listened to some of these survivors tell me about having to eat tumbleweeds or shaking hands and being knocked off their feet because of the static electricity. A writer couldn't ask for better materials."

Walter was on book tour for "The Zero" Wednesday in San Francisco and attended the national announcement of the finalists at the fabled City Lights bookstore by noted poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It was, as the Spokane author put it, "the last thing you expect as a writer."

Walter, 41, was in New York City only five days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there to serve as ghostwriter on the memoirs of the city's police commissioner. That allowed him great access to the World Trade Center site and planted the seeds for his novel, which focuses on the post-attack journey of a police officer who has no memory of the event because of a self-inflicted bullet wound from a failed suicide attempt.

"This novel," Walter said, "is more about our reaction to terrorism and my dismay about the direction of our country since."

Copper Canyon Press, the non-profit poetry publisher, is a finalist for "Angle of Yaw" by Ben Lerner, a Bay Area writer. Copper Canyon won last's year National Book Award in poetry for "Migration" by W.S. Merwin, as well as the awards in 2002 and 1996.

The finalists in non-fiction this year, besides Egan, are Taylor Branch for "At Canaan's Edge," the final volume in his massive biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; Rajiv Chandrasekaran for "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone"; Peter Hessler for "Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present"; and Lawrence Wright for "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11."

The finalists in fiction, besides Walter, are: Mark Danielewski for "Only Revolutions"; Ken Kalfus for "A Disorder Peculiar to the Country"; Richard Powers for "The Echo Maker"; and Dana Spiotta for "Eat the Document."

The winners of the 2006 National Book Awards will be announced at a gala ceremony in New York City on Nov. 15. Winners receive $10,000, while finalists receive $1,000.

To see more of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, for online features, or to subscribe, go to http://seattlep-I.com.

© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All Rights Reserved.

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