First Novelist Reading Loop, Blackbird

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Now in its eighth year, the Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award was created by Laura Browder and Tom De Haven to celebrate the university’s year-long novel workshop, the first of its kind in the nation. Designed to recognize a rising new talent in the literary world who has successfully published a first novel, the award is presented annually at the Cabell First Novelist Festival. The festival highlights the journey a new writer undertakes from idea to publication, with a focus on those elements that make the experience unique. During the three-day festival, the newly published author, the author’s agent, and the book’s editor participate in a series of events concerning the process of the creation, publication, and promotion of a first novel.

The 2009 winner of the Award is Deb Olin Unferth for Vacation . The Blackbird First Novelist Reading Loop includes a selection from Vacation (Fiction), a reading by and conversation with Unferth (Features), an excerpt from a coauthored graphic-novel-in-progress (Gallery), as well as a review of Vacation (Nonfiction).