A Scholastic Writing Award recipient in 1956, is the recipient of the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN America among other honors.

Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-scholastic-art--writing-awards-announce-the-100th-annual-class-of-national-medalists-301779102.html

In 2018, Rebecca Makkai’s was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Source: https://time.com/6251333/best-books-february-2023/

Keith Waldrop, whose first poetry collection was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1969 and who won the award 40 years later with his “Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy,” died on July 27. He was 90.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/12/books/keith-waldrop-dead.html

Toward the end of the summer of 1958, Bagdasarian’s youngest child, 4-year-old Adam (now an author and National Book Award finalist), began asking his father: Is it Christmas yet?

Source: https://www.pressherald.com/2023/12/23/how-the-chipmunk-song-became-an-unlikely-christmas-megahit/