Ruth Ozeki won the LA Times Prize for her novel
A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING
&
Karen Joy Fowler won the PEN/Faulkner Award for
WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES
A lot happens when not just one, but TWO authors on our small, beloved list win major literary awards: TV & film producers come sniffing, foreign publishers arrive in droves (Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary—oh my!), Facebook fans and Twitter followers accrue. Yet what’s most rewarding to witness is the passionate outreach from fans, expressing their love and gratitude for the written word. Both novels have extraordinary heart and wit—two well-suited words for the novelists as well.
It’s been an especially gratifying experience because Ruth and Karen are not only great fans of one another’s work, but have also become great friends.
The road to publication and prizes wasn’t easy, either. Ruth worked tirelessly through five drafts and auditioned just as many narrators for what would become A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING. Just months before publication, Karen tragically lost a cherished friend and literary agent in Wendy Weil. Through it all, Karen and Ruth forged a deep kinship, while in residence at the Hedgebrook center—with the support and understanding only a fellow novelist who’s been at the edge of scrapping it all could provide.
The Friedrich Agency likes to imagine Nao and Rosemary are time beings and—if they weren’t imaginary—they’d likewise be friends. We couldn’t be prouder to represent Karen Joy Fowler and Ruth Ozeki, along with their two prize-winning novels. WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES also won the 83rd Annual California Book Award’s Gold Medal for Fiction and has been nominated for the Nebula Award. A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING won the Kitschie Award for Innovative Fiction, and was a finalist for the Man Booker prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Both are New York Times best sellers.
Please join us in sending Karen and Ruth our greatest, most heart-felt, over-the-moon enthusiastic congratulations!
Karen and Ruth among other writer friends at Hedgebrook