Scott Nadelson wins Reform Judaism Prize for Fiction The Cantor’s Daughter wins Praise of Distinguished Panel
November 15, 2007—Scott Nadelson, an American fiction writer who teaches creative writing at Willamette University in Salem, OR, has won the 2007 Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction for his collection of stories titled The Cantor’s Daughter (Hawthorne Books). This prize caries a $5,000 award as well as a feature in the spring 2008 edition of Reform Judaism, which has the largest circulation of any Jewish publication in the world.
The stories in The Cantor’s Daughter are set in New Jersey, where Nadelson grew up. The stories capture Jewish New Jersey suburbanites in moments of crucial transition, when they have the opportunity to connect with those closest to them or forever miss their chance for true intimacy. The collection was also awarded the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Fiction Prize for Emerging Jewish Writers.
Nadelson’s first book, Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, is an interrelated collection of stories about a Jewish family of four living in suburban New Jersey. The collection was awarded the Oregon Book Award for short fiction and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award.
The Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction was created in 2003 by Dr. Alexander Mauskop, a Larchmont, NY, neurologist, to encourage promising Jewish fiction writers. To qualify, the novel or short story collection must have been written in English on a Jewish theme and published in the United States or Canada.
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel serves as honorary chair of the prize committee. The judges were Janet Burstein, Drew University professor and author of Telling the Little Secrets: American Jewish Writing Since the 1980s (University of Wisconsin Press); Sanford Pinsker, emeritus Professor of Humanities at Franklin and Marshall College; and, Wendy Zierler, assistant professor of feminist studies and modern Jewish literature at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion.
The Union for Reform Judaism (formerly the Union of American Hebrew Congregations) is the central body of Reform Judaism in North America, uniting 1.5 million Reform Jews in more than 900 synagogues. Union services include camps, music and book publishing, outreach to unaffiliated and intermarried Jews, educational programs, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC.
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