Musician Jeff Zentner up for literary prize

NEW YORK – Singer-songwriter Jeff Zentner, whose albums include “A Season Lost” and “The Dying Days of Summer,” is a finalist for an award being handed out next month. But this one is for literature.

Zentner’s “The Serpent King” is among five nominees for the William C. Morris Award, presented by the American Library Association for the year’s best debut novel written for teens. Other contenders announced Monday were M-E Girard’s “Girl Mans Up,” Sonia Patel’s “Rani Patel in Full Effect,” Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock’s “The Smell of Other People’s Houses” and Calla Devlin’s “Tell Me Something Real.”

The Morris prize will be among many announced Jan. 23 by the library association, which also gives the John Newbery Medal for best children’s book and the Randolph Caldecott Medal for best picture book.