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The First Novelist Award honors the best debut novel published during a calendar year. For the calendar year of 2007, we received more than 80 novels from presses large and small. The selection of the winner was a months-long process that involved over 100 readers from Virginia Commonwealth University and the community of Richmond, VA. They narrowed the books to a list of finalists and semifinalists, which were announced in May, 2008. This year's judges are Valley Haggard, Book editor for Style Weekly magazine; Ann McMillan, author of Chickahominy Fever: A Civil War Mystery, among many others; and
The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award celebrates the VCU MFA in Creative Writing Program’s year-long novel workshop – the first in the nation and still one of the few in existence. The Award was created by Laura Browder, playwright and author (Her Best Shot, Slippery Characters, Rousing the Nation), and Tom De Haven, novelist and facilitator of the VCU novel workshop (It's Superman!, Funny Papers, Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies). The winning author receives a $5,000 honorarium. Travel expenses and lodging accommodations also are provided for the author and his or her agent and editor to attend the First Novelist Festival, a series of events that focus on the creation, publication and promotion of a first novel. Co-sponsors of the award are the VCU Department of English, James Branch Cabell Library Associates, Friends of the Library, VCU Libraries, VCU Honors College, and VCU College of Humanities and Sciences. In addition, Richmond writer and VCU alumnus David Baldacci (Total Control, Absolute Power) generously funded and supported the fledgling Award in its early years, for which we are ever grateful.
Presented by the VCU MFA Program in Creative Writing: David Wojahn, Director
VCU English Department: Terry Oggel, Chair
Allan Rosenbaum, designer of the award (pictured above), is an artist and Professor of Ceramics at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Wisconsin Arts Board and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. His work has been included in dozens of exhibtions nationally and internationally and he is represented in public collections including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; Arkansas Art Center Decorative Arts Museum, Little Rock, AR; and Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA. His public commissions include the Virginia Governor's Arts Awards 2000 and the City of Richmond Ambulance Authority. He was one of thirty North American artists chosen to exhibit work in the First Taiwan Ceramics Biennale 2004 in Taipei, Taiwan.
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