While most people know about award shows like the Grammys and the Oscars as the biggest nights for movies and music, not so many know about the National Book Awards, the biggest night for literature.

Among the finalists for the National Book Award in Fiction was Carmen Maria Machado, an Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumna and the author of Her Body and Other Parties.

While Machado unfortunately did not win the award, being recognized as a finalist is a huge honor. Because of this, Machado’s work will soon be widely read and appreciated by fans of fables and magical realism.

Machado came to Iowa City earlier this month to read from her new book, Her Body and Other Parties, a collection of short stories using fables and magical realism.

RELATED: Carmen Maria Machado reads at Prairie Lights

She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she received an M.F.A.

The National Book Awards are American literary prizes that are awarded to authors in four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people’s literature. It was established in 1950 by the National Book Foundation. Previous winners include such well-known authors as William Faulkner, Philip Roth, Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker, and many more.

The list of books in each category is narrowed down to five finalists in a longlist of 10 books. Machado’s book was one of five in the fiction finalist category, alongside writers such as Jesmyn Ward, Elliot Ackerman, Lisa Ko, and Min Jin Lee.