For Sweet, writing The Sewing Girl’s Tale offered a chance to get to know NYC in new way

 For Sweet, writing The Sewing Girl’s Tale offered a chance to get to know NYC in new way

Around every corner, on each new page, was a mystery or a revelation. Ultimately, this book became an opportunity to tell the story of our nation’s founding era not through the eyes of the so-called Founding Fathers but through the eyes of a young woman of modest circumstances: a seventeen-year-old sewing girl who refused to be silenced, who insisted that she, too, mattered. Hers is a powerful New York story of courage — and its costs,” said Sweet, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

We expect both to be cemented in the canon of great New York City books.

Bradley Tusk and Howard Wolfson created the Gotham Book Prize in the early days of the pandemic to encourage and honor new works written about the city. Tusk, a venture capitalist, philanthropist and writer, teamed up with Wolfson, who works for Bloomberg Philanthropies, to create the prize as a way to recognize the culture that has made New York City special for generations and to uplift the creative community during the challenges of the pandemic.

The co-creators described the books as "one whose sharp historical inquiry brings to life New York City’s past, and another whose vivid character development captures the voice of New York City today." 

"We started the Gotham Book Prize during the pandemic to encourage writers to share unique stories about New York, and both of these books have accomplished exactly this. We expect both to be cemented in the canon of great New York City books," Tusk and Wolfson said in a statement.