Minnesota publishers make their mark with National Book Critics Circle Award finalists

The finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced this week, and Minnesota publishers were well-represented.

Of the 30 finalists, spread across six categories, three came from independent Minneapolis presses: Graywolf Press, Coffee House Press and Milkweed Editions.

The Minneapolis triad is made more notable by the fact that 21 of the award's 30 finalists come from New York City-based publishers or imprints. Of the remaining nine, five were published by university presses (Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Brandeis, University of Pittsburgh).

That leaves just four finalists published by independent presses outside of New York — three of which are based in Minneapolis: Graywolf, Coffee House and Milkweed. Copper Canyon, a poetry press in Port Townsend, Wash., was the other independent press outside New York with a finalist. Notably, all four are non-profit organizations.

Finalists from Minneapolis presses

Graywolf Press

Maggie Nelson's "The Argonauts" was named a finalist in the criticism category. Nelson's book has been hailed as a genre-defying piece of nonfiction. "The Argonauts" chronicles Nelson's pregnancy, her relationship with her fluidly gendered partner, and the process of building a family. Nelson winds the the work of critical theorists and other influential thinkers into her own story.

Coffee House Press

Valeria Luiselli's "The Story of My Teeth" was named a finalist in the fiction category. Translated by Christina MacSweeney, Luiselli's delightfully bizarre novel follows Highway, a world traveler and renowned auctioneer, who collects teeth — specifically, the teeth of influential thinkers, like Plato, Marilyn Monroe and Virginia Woolf.

Milkweed Editions

Ada Limon's "Bright Dead Things" was named a finalist in the poetry category. The collection explores the shifting nature of self. The Los Angeles Review of Books called it her "most gorgeous book of poems."

Complete list of finalists

The winners will be announced on March 17.

Autobiography

• "The Light of the World" by Elizabeth Alexander
• "The Odd Woman and the City" by Vivian Gornick
• "Bettyville" by George Hodgman
• "Negroland" by Margo Jefferson
• "H Is for Hawk" by Helen Macdonald

Biography

• "Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth" by Terry Alford
• "Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley" by Charlotte Gordon
• "Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America" by T.J. Stiles
• "Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva" by Rosemary Sullivan
• "Dietrich and Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives" by Karin Wieland and Shelly Frisch

Criticism

• "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• "Eternity's Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake" by Leo Damrosch
• "The Argonauts" by Maggie Nelson
• "On Elizabeth Bishop" by Colm Tóibín
• "The Nearest Thing to Life" by James Wood

Fiction

• "The Sellout" by Paul Beatty
• "Fates and Furies" by Lauren Groff
• "The Story of My Teeth" by Valeria Luiselli
• "The Tsar of Love and Techno" by Anthony Marra
• "Eileen" by Ottessa Moshfegh

Nonfiction

• "SPQR: A History of Rome" by Mary Beard
• "Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America" by Ari Berman
• "Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America" by Jill Leovy
• "Dreamland: The True Story of America's Opiate Epidemic" by Sam Quinones
• "What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing" by Brian Seibert

Poetry

• "Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude" by Ross Gay
• "How to Be Drawn" by Terrance Hayes
• "Bright Dead Things" by Ada Limón
• "Parallax and Selected Poems" by Sinéad Morrissey
• "What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford" by Frank Stanford