Ali Benjamin, author of the National Book Award-nominated novel The Thing About Jellyfish (Little, Brown, Sept.), was recently separated from her finalist medal. Each finalist is given a medal and $1,000 cash prize in a private ceremony. Benjamin was one of five finalists for this year’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
The author was headed home to Albany, N.Y, from last weekend’s Miami Book Fair, with a stopover in Charlotte, N.C. She had packed the medal in her suitcase, but as she made her way home, the medal had its own trajectory, when the airline sent it to the wrong city. Her suitcase ended up at a stranger’s house in Charlottesville, Va.
The kindly stranger contacted Benjamin last Sunday, “and it turns out we know someone in common,” the author said in an e-mail. While Benjamin still hasn’t gotten her bag yet, she’s confident it will find its way to her soon. But lesson learned; as she put it, “Never let your National Book Award finalist’s medal fall into the care of the airline. Yikes.”
Update: Benjamin wrote to PW on Monday, Nov. 30 to report that she had been reunited with her bag and medal. The man who received the bags erroneously sent them back to her, and sent the medal separately. "It arrived via FedEx," she said. "In turn, I'm sending him some signed copies of my book, as well as a few of my favorite books of all time."
