The Dreamhouse , a book of poetry by Thomas Sleigh, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College, is a finalist for the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in poetry. Reader's Digest Writer's Award. The New York Times Book Review selected his second book, Waking, as a Notable Book of the Year for 1990-91. The Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of book prizes annually since 1980, with prizes presently given in eight categories, including biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction, history, poetry, science and technology, and young-adult fiction.
Nominations come from seven three-member committees of judges, most of whom are published authors.
The author of four books of poetry, three plays and a translation of Euripides' Herakles , Sleigh has taught at Dartmouth since 1986. He also is an advisory editor of Agni Review at Boston University's Creative Writing Program and a contributing editor at the Boston Review . He is a graduate of the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, where he currently is a visiting professor. Prior winners of Los Angeles Times Book Prizes include Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Louise Erdrich, Allen Ginsberg, Barbara Kingsolver, Thomas Keneally, Henry Kissinger, Nicholas Lemann, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Frank McCourt, Adrienne Rich and Carl Sagan, among others.