The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, usually awarded at the end of the year, will instead be presented on April 18 as part of the Times' 1997 Festival of Books.
While in the past the eligibility year for the Book Prizes has been Aug. 1 through July 31, the eligibility period for the 1997 awards will be from July 1, 1995, to Dec. 31, 1996, to accommodate the schedule change. Beginning in 1998, the awards will be based on works published during the calendar year.
The Book Prizes will be awarded in the categories of fiction, poetry, history, biography, current interest, science and technology and first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award). The winner of the Robert Kirsch Award, which recognizes a body of work by a writer living in or writing on the American West, will also be announced at the April 18 ceremony.