Winners from Prior Years

Adult Fiction
Winners:
Nick Dybek — When Captain Flint Was Still A Good Man — Riverhead

Jack Driscoll — The World of a Few Minutes Ago — Wayne State University Press

Finalists:
Peter Geye — The Lighthouse Road — Unbridled Books

Richard Babcock — Are You Happy Now — Amazon Publishing

Adult Nonfiction
Winner:
Neil Steinberg — You Were Never in Chicago — University of Chicago Press

Finalists:
Mark Binelli — Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis — Metropolitan Books

Benjamin Busch — Dust to Dust: A Memoir — Ecco

Gregory Harms — It’s Not About Religion — Perceval Press

Biography
Winner:
David Von Drehle — Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year — Henry Holt and Co.

Finalists:
Steven Lubet — John Brown’s Spy: The Adventurous Life and Tragic Confession of John E. Cook — Yale University Press

Rich Cohen — The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King — Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Children's fiction
Winner:
Shelley Pearsall — Jump Into the Sky — Knopf Books for Young Readers

Finalists:
Polly Carlson-Voiles — Summer of the Wolves — Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Tim Shoemaker — Code of Silence: Living a Lie Comes With a Price — Zonderkidz

Children's Nonfiction
Winner:
Mary Losure — The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World — Candlewick

Finalists:
Rebecca L. Johnson — Zombie Makers: True Stories of Nature’s Undead —Millbrook Press

Ann Bausum — Marching to the Mountaintop: How Poverty, Labor Fights and Civil Rights Set the Stage for Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Hours — National Geographic Children's Books

Poetry
Winner:
Dan Gerber — Sailing Through Cassiopeia — Copper Canyon Press

Finalists:
Joe Wilkins — Notes From the Journey Westward — White Pine Press.

John Koethe — ROTC Kills — Harper Perennial

James Friend Memorial Award for Literary and Dramatic Criticism
Winner:
Jonathan Messinger — former Time Out Chicago books editor