Time to congratulate Minnesotans VV Ganeshananthan and Jim Perlman, who have won separate awards.

Jim Perlman (Anna Min / Min Enterprises Photography)

Perlman, founder/publisher of Holy Cow! Press in Duluth, received a Lifetime Achievement award from Community of Literary Magazines and Presses for his years of publishing quality books. The award was announced as part of CLMP’s annual Firecracker Awards virtual ceremony. Perlman founded Holy Cow in 1977 in Minneapolis and has acquired and mostly edited more than 125 books of poetry, short fiction, novels, biography, memoir and anthologies, with an emphasis on Midwest and Native American writers. Perlman, who holds a master’s degree from the University of Iowa, moved the press several times, from Iowa and Wisconsin, before settling in Duluth in 1988. His first publication was  “Letters to Tomasito,” a chapbook of poems by Thomas McGrath about his son.

V.V. Ganeshananthan has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024 from the Women’s Prize Trust for her novel “Brotherless Night.” (Courtesy of the Women’s Prize Trust)

VV Ganeshananthan won the Women’s prize for fiction for her novel “Brotherless Night.” The prize, now in its 29th year, describes itself as “the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world.” It began in 1995 in the wake of an all-male Booker Prize shortlist in 1991 and is administered by the Women’s Prize Trust. The story, set mostly during the Sri Lankan civil war, is about a girl who dreams of becoming a doctor before war breaks out in her country and those around her begin to engage with violent political ideologies. The judges called the novel “brilliant, compelling and deeply moving.” This is the second major win for “Brotherless Night.” In May Ganeshananthan received the $150,000 Carol Shields prize, considered the largest English-speaking literary prize in the world for women and non-binary writers.

Attention Klecko Nation: Danny Klecko, poet/baker/presenter has gone international. His poem “Chess in Bryant Park,” published in the New York Times Metropolitan Daily feature, was read last week by DJ John Devenish on his jazz show aired from Toronto. “Beyond cool!” says Julie Pfitzinger, Klecko’s publisher at Paris Morning Publications.

Circle Oct. 13 on your fall calendar: That’s the announced date for Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s 20th Opus & Olive fundraiser at St. Paul RiverCentre. Stay tuned for forthcoming information about high-profile writers who will be guest readers.

Signing: Daniel Blackburn signs copies of his memoir “Lost and Found” from 10-11:30 a.m. Friday, July 5, at Lake Country Booksellers, 2766 Washington Square, White Bear Lake.

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