The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced its 30 nominees for awards in six categories of books published in 2014 (memoir, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry) on Monday night. Chang-rae Lee, Elizabeth Kolbert, Gary Shteyngart, Eula Bliss, and Saeed Jones, and others, are among the finalists for the awards.

The Prizes involve some firsts for NBCC. For the first time in NBCC’s 39-year history, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, was nominated for two separate categories, including poetry and criticism. Of the book, Rigoberto González, chair of the Poetry committee, said, “Citizen is a book of prose poetry whose inventive composition and topical content invite readers to consider different avenues toward the urgent conversation about race and politics in America. Rankine’s appearance on two separate categories is a testament to her book’s complexity, narrative reach, and artistry.”

Another first: six of the nominees’ books come from publishers based in Minnesota, including The Essential Ellen Willis by Ellen Willis from University of Minnesota Press and Rankine’s book, from Graywolf Press, among others.

NBCC also announced winners of three prizes, including Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate and Pulitzer-prize winning novelist, who received the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award; New Yorker Assistant Editor Alexandra Schwartz, who received the 2014 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing; and Phil Klay, who received the John Leonard Prize for his short story collection, Redeployment (which also won the 2014 National Book Award for fiction).

The remaining awards will be presented on March 12 at The New School in New York in a free ceremony open to the public. Read the complete list of nominees in each genre in The Washington Post.