The Story Prize is pleased to announce its 2018 judges: author Jo Ann Beard, Washington Post book critic Ron Charles, and bookseller Veronica Santiago Liu. The judges will choose the winner of The Story Prize from among the three books we'll select as finalists and announce in January.
About the judges
Jo Ann Beard is the author of In Zanesville, a novel, and The Boys of My Youth, a collection of autobiographical essays. Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in journals, magazines, and anthologies.
Ron Charles is a book critic and feature writer at The Washington Post, where he hosts the Totally Hip Video Book Review. Before coming to The Post in 2005, Charles edited the book section of The Christian Science Monitor in Boston. In 2009, he won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Reviewing. In 2011, he won first place for Arts & Entertainment commentary from the Society for Features Journalism. In 2014, Charles served as a judge for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. He also hosts a quarterly interview series called Life of a Poet, co-sponsored by the Library of Congress.
Veronica Santiago Liu has been involved in community arts organizing for 24 years, most recently as founder and general coordinator of the 60-person collective that operates Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria. She has received individual grants for writing, the development of an arts and music fair, oral history, and various publishing projects, and she sits on the Diversity Task Force of the American Booksellers Association, the advisory board for Healthy Families Washington Heights, and the community advisory board for freeform radio station WFMU. Prior to becoming Word Up’s first paid staff member, she was a contributing editor at Seven Stories Press, where she worked as managing then senior editor for more than a decade.
Jo Ann Beard is the author of In Zanesville, a novel, and The Boys of My Youth, a collection of autobiographical essays. Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in journals, magazines, and anthologies.
Ron Charles is a book critic and feature writer at The Washington Post, where he hosts the Totally Hip Video Book Review. Before coming to The Post in 2005, Charles edited the book section of The Christian Science Monitor in Boston. In 2009, he won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Reviewing. In 2011, he won first place for Arts & Entertainment commentary from the Society for Features Journalism. In 2014, Charles served as a judge for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. He also hosts a quarterly interview series called Life of a Poet, co-sponsored by the Library of Congress.
The Story Prize event at The New School will be on March 6, 2019, so save the date!
