We are excited to announce the recipients of the 2022 Big Other Literary Citizenship Awards. This award aims to recognize outstanding efforts toward supporting the work of innovative writers and adventurous presses, through reviewing, editing, publishing, and/or promoting books, as well as encouraging, building, and sustaining a robust literary culture.

These exemplary literary citizens will be further celebrated at the 2022 Big Other Book Awards Ceremony (date and location TBD).

And the awardees are:

Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation

From Wikipedia:

The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation is an American literary nonprofit organization that supports the development and careers of Black writers. The Foundation provides classes, workshops, an annual conference, and offers the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the North Star Award, among others. Writer Marita Golden and cultural historian Clyde McElvene founded the organization in 1990.

The Hurston/Wright Foundation was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1990 by writer Marita Golden and cultural historian Clyde McElvene. Golden used $750 of her own money to found the organization, which she wanted in part “to address the dearth of black graduate students in literature that she found while teaching at several area universities.” The stated mission is to help develop the careers of Black writers and to increase the representation within the literary field. The organization is named after prolific Black writers Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Toni Morrison previously sat on the advisory board. The executive director is Khadijah Ali-Coleman and board chair is Audrey Hipkins.

The Foundation provides classes, workshops, public readings, and awards. […] It also holds an annual literary conference in D.C. […] The Legacy Awards are announced annually at a ceremony.

 Rain Taxi: Review of Books

From their website:

Rain Taxi is much more than just a magazine! We are a literary organization that fosters engagement with innovative writing through programs and publications. Our main vehicle is the award-winning print quarterly Rain Taxi Review of Books and its corollary Online Edition, which each have unique material that connects readers to books of merit that might otherwise get overlooked. With coverage of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, art, graphic novels, translations, and more, Rain Taxi exists for readers and writers, literary publishers of all shapes and sizes, booksellers, educators, and kindred spirits who want books to keep flourishing in a distracted society.

Rain Taxi also organizes the Rain Taxi Reading Series and the annual Twin Cities Book Festival, both of which bring literature to life and provide a public celebration of the literary arts. As a service to our local community, we also maintain the Twin Cities Literary Calendar, which lists all events happening in our region. Rain Taxi also publishes original creative works via chapbooks and broadsides. In all our programs, we are committed to artistic diversity, cultural relevance, and widespread access.

Rain Taxi published its first print issue in January 1996, and quickly built a strong nationwide readership; our print journal is now distributed in over 150 locations nationwide—mostly independent bookstores—and is also shipped by mail to our members. An accompanying Online Edition, with completely different material, is posted to our website each quarter as well, and together, the two publications offer readers a broad look at the noteworthy literary art being published today.

Over the years, we have been awarded Best Literary Events five times by City Pages, and won the Utne Independent Press Award for Arts & Literature Coverage in 2000. A 25 Years of Rain Taxi exhibit appeared in the gallery at Open Book in Spring 2000; see here for a film overview of the exhibit.