UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — “Stone Fruit,” written by Lee Lai and published by Fantagraphics, has won the 2022 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize. Penn State University Libraries sponsors this juried award and its administrator, the Pennsylvania Center for the Book.
Of the book, jurors said, “How is it that something so sweet, wonderful, and delicious is also filled with hardness? This question animates Lee Lai’s empathetic exploration of love, intimacy, kinship, and care in ‘Stone Fruit.’ Lai’s nuanced character and question-driven graphic novel sparingly uses line, text, and color. These choices bring a starkness to the story, but they also open spaces for readers to engage more deeply with the complexities around what family means. Dream-like ink wash landscapes contrast with bodies that carry the marks of living and loving, just as the scenes of joyous monstrosity are foils for the traumas embedded in the lives of Bron, Ray, Amanda, and Nessie.
"Lee Lai’s ‘Stone Fruit’ is one of those rare graphic novels where everything — story, text, images, style — comes together in full complement to create a memorable, moving experience for readers.”
Lai will receive a $2,500 prize and “Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts,” a two-volume boxed set published by Library of America, at a forthcoming event (details to be announced in the fall).
“How to Pick a Fight” by Lara Kaminoff, published by Nobrow; and R. Kikuo Johnson’s “No One Else,” published by Fantagraphics, were named 2022 Lynd Ward Prize honor books.
In ‘How to Pick a Fight,’ said the jurors, “Lara Kaminoff’s spunky and memorable characters take the page by storm. Jimmy Ruckus loves watching wrestling with his grandma and dreams of life in the ring, but it feels to Jimmy that his big, loud family has no space for his dreams. So Jimmy leaves to seek the amazing life he imagines. Kaminoff’s combination of bold lines, brilliant reds, chiaroscuro style, and energetic story explodes off the page and propels Jimmy and his exaggerated pompadour into readers’ hearts. Unlike many coming-of-age stories in which the protagonist returns to the familiar, Kaminoff’s story keeps propelling Jimmy forward, reminding us — no matter how impossible it seems — to see where our dreams take us.”
Of "No One Else", jurors said: “A brother, sister, and her son must figure out how to be a family again after the death of an elderly father. Johnson’s specificity in this slim, enigmatic graphic novel brings a poignancy to that loss and its impact: the work ID accidentally thrown in the garbage, the grandfather’s ashes under the sink, a runaway cat, and everyday Maui’s traffic lights and backyard parties. Johnson’s finely observed naturalism contrasts with expansive spreads filled with fierce, expressionistic oranges and thick blacks. These impactful images and economical text encourage readers to contemplate the question of what we might find within loss.”
The Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize is presented annually to the best graphic novel, fiction or nonfiction, published in the previous calendar year by a living U.S. or Canadian citizen or resident. It honors Ward's influence in the development of the graphic novel and celebrates the gift of an extensive collection of Ward’s wood engravings, original book illustrations and other graphic art donated to Penn State’s University Libraries by his daughters Robin Ward Savage and the late Nanda Weedon Ward. Between 1929 and 1937, Ward published six groundbreaking wordless novels: "Gods' Man," "Madman’s Drum," "Wild Pilgrimage," "Prelude to a Million Years," "Song without Words" and "Vertigo."
The Lynd Ward Graphic Novel selection jury includes representatives who have significant graphic novel expertise:
Sophia Alexander is an undergraduate student at Penn State majoring in graphic design. Inspired by art in its many forms, she said she aspires to create a better world through design. Her attachment to graphic novels is closely tied to her passions in the art world. She said she hopes to write and publish a graphic novel of her own someday.
Liz Schoppelrei is a dual-title doctoral candidate in comparative literature and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Penn State. They also hold a graduate minor in German. Their research and teaching focus on representations of queer community, queerness, and transness in graphic novels, comics, speculative fiction, novels, poetry, and poetry slam.
Carol Tilley is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to teaching future librarians, she is a comics scholar, focusing on comics history and readership. She is a past president of the Comics Studies Society and was a judge for the 2015 Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards.
Dina A. Mahmoud is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature and visual studies at Penn State. Her research examines the reception of Arabophone, Francophone and Anglophone comics on civil conflicts from the SWANA region. She also uses comics in her literature classes, and plans to incorporate Arabic comics into her advanced language classes.
Christopher Heaney is an assistant professor of history at Penn State, where he regularly teaches using graphic novels and histories as primary and secondary sources. He said his favorite feature to edit in “The Appendix,” an online journal of narrative and experimental history he co-founded, was the “Not-So-Funny Pages,” a series of experiments in historical storytelling using comics.
Co-sponsors of this award at the University are the Penn State University Libraries; Library Learning Services; the Eberly Family Special Collections Library; the Department of English; and the College of the Liberal Arts.
The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress, promotes libraries and literacy, and encourages Pennsylvania's citizens and residents to read, study, and celebrate books. In addition to the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, it also administers the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award; Public Poetry Project; A Baker’s Dozen: The Best Children’s Books for Family Literacy; Poems from Life; Wordstruck; and the interactive Literary & Cultural Heritage Map of Pennsylvania.
For more information about the selection criteria and how to submit books to be considered for the 2023 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, contact Karla M. Schmit at kms454@psu.edu or 814-863-5521, or visit the Pennsylvania Center for the Book's website.