CRYSTAL WILKINSON'S WATER STREET NOMINATED FOR U.K. ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION

Crystal Wilkinson's Water Street longlisted for Orange Prize 2003

Toby Press is delighted to announce that Crystal Wilkinson has been selected to join such literary luminaries as Zadie Smith, Carol Shields and Donna Tartt on the longlist for the 2003 Orange Prize for Fiction. The Washington Post wrote of WATER STREET that it is "evidence of Wilkinson's considerable promise...[Water Street] continues to establish her as an author who deserves wider attention." With its nomination for the Orange Prize for Fiction, WATER STREET has received the attention it deserves. The prestigious prize is awarded every year to recognize excellence in fiction written by women. A panel of 5 judges read hundreds of novels published that year in the U.K. in order to select 20 to nominate for the Orange prize. The winner (to be announced in June) receives £30,000 ($47,000) and a limited edition bronze figurine called the 'Bessie.'

"On Water Street, every person has at least two stories to tell. One story that the light of day shines on and the other that lives only in the pitch black of night, the kind of story that a person carries beneath their breastbones for safekeeping." WATER STREET examines the secret lives of neighbors and friends who live on Water Street in a small town in Kentucky. Assured and intimate, Wilkinson weaves us in and out of the lives of Water Street's inhabitants, dealing with love, loss, truth and tragedy, as the narration switches from person to person and their remarkable, varied and authentic voices are revealed under Wilkinson's sure hand. This is a superb, cohesive work which marks Ms. Wilkinson's evolution as a gifted observer and writer.

Crystal Wilkinson grew up in rural Kentucky and was a director of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington. She is a charter member of the Affrilachian Poets, a group of performing African-American poets from the South, and serves as chair of the creative writing department for the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts. Her first collection, Blackberries, Blackberries, also published by Toby Press, won her the Chaffin prize and was named best debut fiction by Today's Librarian. The Lexington Herald-Leader summed up the consensus of most, when they wrote: "Wilkinson is a storyteller in the tradition of Southerners such as Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers." The Atlanta Tribune praised the "immediacy and power with which [Wilkinson] captures raw emotion." Author Marita Golden has praised Wilkinson's writing as "a voice from the heartland you won't be able to forget."