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Members and fans of PEN Center USA gathered tonight at the Beverly Hills Hotel to give out the organization's 2010 Literary Awards. The journalism winner is Mary Melton, the editor of Los Angeles Magazine, for her piece in the magazine on Julius Shulman. Some more winners:
Fiction - Victor Lodato: "Mathilda Savitch" (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)Creative Nonfiction - Vicki Forman: "This Lovely Life" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Research Nonfiction - Minal Hajratwala: "Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company)
Drama - Julie Hebert: "Tree"
Screenplay - Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner: "Up in the Air" (Paramount Pictures)
Teleplay - Peter Blake: House: “The Tyrant” (NBC Universal)
The University of California Press Exceptional First Book Award - Angela Garcia: "The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande"
PEN also honored Hugh Hefner with its Award of Honor and First Amendment Award, James Salter with the Lifetime Achievement Award for 2010, and Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver with a special award for their Hank Zipzer novels aimed at young readers. Winners, finalists and judges
National Book Awards: Patti Smith won the nonfiction award tonight in New York. Los Angeles Times staff writers Barbara Demick and Megan Stack were both finalists in the category. Winners