This year’s virtual showcase – expanded beyond its usual timeframe – celebrated present and past Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (AWBA) winners over its distinguished 86-year history.
2021 Awards Documentary
Enjoy this reimagined ceremony-turned-documentary hosted by Anisfield-Wolf Jury Chair Henry Louis Gates Jr., featuring an intimate portrait of our 2021 winners.
As part of the CIFF Streams + AWBA film selections, viewers can enjoy an additional Q&A with the producers of this year’s documentary.
A Conversation with Mira Jacob
In Mira Jacob’s graphic memoir “Good Talk,” her half-Jewish, half-Indian son, Z, has questions about everything, like many six-year-olds. At first the questions are innocuous enough, but as tensions from the 2016 election spread from the media into his own family, they become much, much more complicated.
AWBA + CIFF Streams
Viewers had the opportunity to stream seven free Cleveland International Film Festival features, including the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards documentary, and two short film programs. Each film was coupled with an in-depth interview with the people behind the lens, hosted by Cleveland State University Professor Eric Siler.
Writers Center Stage: Richard Powers
Award-winning author Richard Powers is known for writing novels that explore modern science and technology. His best-selling novel “The Overstory” (2019) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His latest novel, “Bewilderment,” will be released in September 2021.
Ayana Grey and “Beasts of Prey”
The author of this much-anticipated young adult series opener met with attendees in the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Rainforest. In “Beasts of Prey,” fate binds two Black teenagers as they strike a dangerous alliance to hunt down the creature menacing their home—and uncover ancient deadly secrets.
GLAAWC 2021
Award-winning novelist Deesha Philyaw (“The Secret Lives of Church Ladies”) headlined this multi-day writers’ conference, now in its fourth year.