Editing Nelson Algren (section)

== Nelson Algren Award ==
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Each year the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' gives a Nelson Algren award for short fiction. Winners are published in the newspaper and given $5,000. The award is viewed with more than a little irony by Algren admirers; the ''Tribune'' panned Algren's work in his lifetime, referring to ''Chicago: City on the Make'' as "an ugly, highly scented object."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111824098/review-of-nelson-algrens-chicago/|title=Algren Pens a Distorted, Partial Story of Chicago|date=June 4, 1935|work=Chicago Tribune|first=Alfred C.|last=Ames|access-date=October 22, 2022|page=4:3|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> In an afterword to that book, Algren accused the ''Tribun''e of imposing false viewpoints on the city and promoting mediocrity.

[[Studs Terkel]], writer Warren Leming, and three others founded the Nelson Algren Committee in 1989. At the time, there was a renewed interest in Algren's work. ''Somebody in Boots'' and ''Never Come Morning'', both long out of print, had been republished in 1987. The first biography of Algren, Bettina Drew's ''Nelson Algren: A Life on the Wild Side'', was published in 1989 by Putnam. All of Nelson Algren's words are now back in print.

The Committee awards community activists an annual Algren award and sponsors an Algren birthday party.