Neck Deep by Ander Monson has been chosen as the winner of the 2006 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. Monson will receive a $12,000 advance, and Graywolf will publish Neck Deep in February 2007.
Robert Polito served as the outside judge for the contest. Polito said, “Elizabeth Bishop often remarked that she wanted poems and prose that register the mind in motion rather than at rest. Bishop would have loved the work of Ander Monson, as much for his yearning mind as his quick, restless, precise motion. ‘I have been thinking about snow,’ Monson writes in Neck Deep. Yes, indeed, and one of the many copious and surprising things he’s also obviously been thinking about is the new American essay, of which he is the latest Edison, to touch on the title of his earlier collection of stories, Other Electricities. For Monson the essay is something like a schematics for our fiercest longings and most ecstatic inventions. Every time I turn to it I'm astonished all over again by the majesty of this book.”

On winning the prize, Monson remarked, “I’m ridiculously pleased to have Neck Deep selected as the winner, as it is a strange beast indeed, a kind of formal invasion or at least reinvention of the index, the Harvard Outline, the criminal history, the mathematical proof, and more. Only a press as fearless as Graywolf would publish it, and so I am glad to be among the many writers I admire: Braverman, Goldbarth, Birkerts, D’Agata, Rosemurgy, Haines, Phillips, and Shields.”

Graywolf Press Director and Publisher Fiona McCrae noted: “Running the nonfiction prize has been a very enjoyable experience for us.  Three editors here are involved in the process and we all love working with the judge, Robert Polito. We received over 150 submissions and came up with a shortlist of nine that were in serious contention. Robert then narrowed that down to four contenders. In the end, we all agreed that Ander Monson was the outright winner.  None of us had ever read anything quite like Neck Deep before, and we wanted to honor—and publish—his originality and wit.”

The winner of the first annual Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles: An Accidental Memoir by Kate Braverman, was published February 1. Kirkus Reviews calls it “an absorbing chronicle of a personal journey with broader implications,” and Publishers Weekly said it is a “a brash, witty memoir.” Graywolf’s editors and Polito will consider submissions for the third annual prize later this year. 

Ander Monson is the author of the novel Other Electricities (Sarabande Books, 2005) and the poetry collection Vacationland (Tupelo Press, 2005). He lives in Michigan where he teaches at Grand Valley State University and edits both the magazine DIAGRAM and the New Michigan Press.

Robert Polito is a poet, biographer, and critic. His books include Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography; Doubles; and A Reader's Guide to James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover. The recipient of Ingram Merrill and Guggenheim fellowships, Robert Polito is the Director of the Graduate Writing Program at The New School in New York.