The Newberry Library and The Pattis Family Foundation are now accepting nominations for the 2023 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award. The award, which was inaugurated in July of 2022, celebrates published works that transform public understanding of Chicago, its history, and its people.
“Our goal in this partnership with The Pattis Family Foundation is to bring attention to books that help audiences see Chicago in new ways,” said Newberry President and Librarian Daniel Greene.
Anyone can nominate a book for the 2023 award through a form on the Newberry’s website. The review panel considers work by writers working in a variety of genres, including history, biography, social sciences, poetry, drama, graphic novels, and fiction.
The first Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award was presented to Dawn Turner at a public event at the Newberry on July 30, 2022. Turner received the award for Three Girls from Bronzeville, a bracing memoir about how race, class, and geography intersect to shape both communities and individual lives in Chicago.
Upon accepting the award, Turner said, “It is enormously gratifying and humbling to be given a book award from The Pattis Family Foundation and the Newberry Library, two esteemed Chicago institutions that celebrate the value of storytelling and its power to illuminate, inspire, and change lives.”