VCU Friends of the Library, faculty, staff and students are all encouraged to become a part of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award selection process by reading and reviewing this year's eligible books. A total of 80 books are now available for check-out in the shelf beside the circulation desk in Cabell Library.
A list of the books and their current availability can be found in the VCU Cabell First Novelist Catalog. To participate in the selection process, just check out a book that looks interesting, read it and submit a review. Reviews may be submitted either in paper form at the circulation desk in Cabell Library or through e-mail to firstnovelist@gmail.com. Please follow the guidelines on the Cabell First Novelist Review Sheet.
Your participation will be extremely helpful in narrowing down the selection for the judges, who will then determine the winner of the award from a short list of finalists. The deadline for you to read books and submit your reviews is Friday, April 1, 2011.
Thank you for your interest and participation. You will enjoy sampling the work of some of the most promising new authors. The VCU Cabell First Novelist books represent a wide variety of authors and approaches to the art of the novel, so you are sure to find a book that speaks to you or that offers you something excitingly new.
Presented annually by the VCU MFA Program in Creative Writing, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award honors the best first novel published during the previous calendar year. The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award is sponsored by the VCU Department of English, James Branch Cabell Library Associates, VCU Friends of the Library, VCU Libraries, VCU Honors College and VCU College of Humanities and Sciences.