WASHINGTON, DC, October 3, 2023 — Mattie and the Machine [Santa Monica Press], a debut novel by Lynn Ng Quezon, has been selected to receive the 2023 Grateful American Book Prize, according to co-founder David Bruce Smith.

The Santa Monica Press called it “a fictionalized yet historically accurate account of Margaret E. Knight’s fight to obtain recognition as a 19th century female inventor,” while The Kirkus Reviews described it as “an intriguing story about a little-known woman…one of the first women inventors in the post-Civil War era,” and Marissa Meyer of the New York Times said it was “a surprisingly twisty tale, full of betrayal, romance, grit, friendships, machinery, and a protagonist you can’t help rooting for!”

Sheila Turnage’s Island of Spies, a riveting World War II spy mystery, and Sara Latta’s biography, I Could Not Do Otherwise: The Remarkable Life of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker–an early female physician/spy–will receive “Honorable Mentions.”

Smith, also an author, and an education advocate, founded the Grateful American Book Prize with the late Dr. Bruce Cole, the longest-serving chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities [2001 to 2009].

It comes with $13,000 in commemoration of the 13 Colonies; a lifetime membership at the New-York Historical Society, and a medallion created by Smith’s mother, the renowned artist, Clarice Smith.

The ”Honorable Mention” recipients get $500 each, and the medallion.

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The Grateful American Book Prize is awarded each year to high quality, 7th to 9th grade-level, historical fiction, and non-fiction, about the events and personalities that have shaped the United States since its founding.