Rev. Danny Fisher

[This post has been updated as of 5:35 p.m. EST on 11.20.08.]

Another good catch today from the great Phil Ryan at the Tricycle Editors’ Blog: American writer, naturalist, and Zen Buddhist priest Peter Muryo Matthiessen has won the very prestigious National Book Award for Shadow Country, a “new rendering” of his Watson trilogy. Matthiessen, who was ordained through the White Plum Asanga, lineage of the late Taizan Maezumi Roshi, has authored at least two books that will be of special interest to Buddhist practitioners: The Snow Leopard and Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals, 1969-1982. You can also read his talk “The Coming of Age of American Zen,” delivered at the Boston Park Plaza for the 1996 Buddhism in America conference, in Brian Hotchkiss and Al Rappaport’s Buddhism in America: Proceedings of the First Buddhism in America Conference.

Poet Maxine Hong Kingston, another Buddhist, also received an honorary award from the National Book Foundation. A student of Thich Nhat Hanh’s, she contributed to his book For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Mindfulness Trainings and wrote the introduction to Sister Chan Khong’s book Learning True Love: Practicing Buddhism In A Time of War. In addition, she serves on the Advisory Council of the Buddhist Film Society, Inc.