Dispatches From Writers Across the Country, Candidates for New Paris Review Editor, and More
A reading of Rachel Carson’s writing on the sea; the finalists for the $10,000 Four Quartets Poetry Prize; candles inspired by books; and other news.
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
National Book Critics Circle Awards, Morgan Library Acquires James Joyce Collection, and More
Judges for 2018 National Book Awards announced; women writers share the books they read when they’re angry; novelist Katherine Faw on her writing process; and other news.
Women Take Home All Six National Book Critics Circle Awards
Last night in New York City the winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards (NBCC) were announced. The winners in all six categories were women, including Layli Long Soldier in poetry for her collection, WHEREAS (Graywolf), Joan Silber in fiction for her novel Improvement (Counterpoint), and Xiaolu Guo in autobiography for her memoir, Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China (Grove).
The poetry finalists were Nuar Alsadir’s Fourth Person Singular (Oxford University Press), James Longenbach’s Earthling (W.W. Norton), Frank Ormsby’s The Darkness of Snow (Wake Forest University Press), and Ana Ristović’s Directions for Use, translated from the Serbian by Steven Teref and Maja Teref (Zephyr Press).
The finalists in fiction were Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West (Riverhead), Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (Knopf), and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner).
The finalists in autobiography were Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir (Abrams), Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (Harper), Henry Marsh’s Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martins), and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s The Girl From the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia, translated from the Russian by Anna Summers (Penguin).
Additionally, fiction writer Carmen Maria Machado won the John Leonard Prize for her story collection, Her Body and Other Parties (Graywolf); fiction writer and critic Charles Finch received the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing; and creative nonfiction writer John McPhee received the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award.
Established in 1974, the National Book Critics Circle Awards, which are among the most prestigious prizes for literature, are given annually for books published in the previous year. A board of twenty-four working magazine and newspaper critics and editors nominates and selects the winners each year. Visit the NBCC website for a complete list of winners and finalists.
(Photos from left: Layli Long Soldier, Joan Silber, Xiaolu Guo)
McNally Jackson Books: Williamsburg
This expansion store of McNally Jackson Books located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is a two-story space with a large selection of literature and a robust children’s book section. The shop also hosts readings, talks, and panels across a range of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.
Tags:
powerHouse on 8th
PowerHouse on 8th is a bookstore, reading club, mini-gallery, and community space in the South Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, offering the best in fiction, nonfiction, children’s, YA, novelty, and cooking books, as well as decor and stationery—all from the curatorial minds hived at Dumbo’s famed powerHouse Arena. The shop hosts book launches, readings, and a Sunday Story Time series.
Tags:
Craigardan Writer's Residency
Craigardan offers two-week to one-month residencies year-round to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers at Craigardan, a nonprofit arts and agricultural academic center in Keene, located on Hurricane Mountain in the Adirondack region of New York. The resident will receive lodging in a private cabin or shared farmhouse with a shared kitchen and bath. Craigardan accommodates one writer at a time. The cost of the residency, which includes some meals, is $250 per week or $1,000 per month.
Type:
RESIDENCY
Ignore Event Date Field?:
yes
Event Date:
April 2, 2025
Rolling Admissions:
yes
Application Deadline:
April 2, 2025
Financial Aid?:
no
Financial Aid Application Deadline:
April 2, 2025
Free Admission:
no
Contact Information:
Craigardan Writer's Residency, P.O. Box 46, Keene, NY 12942. (518) 242-6535. Michele Drozd, Executive Director
Michele Drozd
Executive Director
Contact City:
Keene
Contact State:
NY
Contact Zip / Postal Code:
12942
Country:
US
Add Image:
First Glimpse of My Brilliant Friend Adaptation, Harper Lee Lawsuit, and More
Thirty-five of the best recent books by women; appraising a book in less than thirty seconds; Ann Beattie on writer’s block; and other news.
Nuts for Nutella
Earlier this year, a supermarket chain in France held a promotion that slashed prices of Nutella, the popular hazelnut and chocolate spread, by 70 percent causing shoppers in some stores to stampede as they scrambled to snatch up the bargain. Think of one of your favorite food items, perhaps a gourmet good that you treat yourself to only occasionally but wish you could have every day. Write a lyric essay about this item, integrating your personal history and specific memories with references to researched tidbits or fun facts.
Alan Hollinghurst’s Influence, Writers’ Voices, and More
The Book Thief author Markus Zusak announces new novel; the Florentine haunts of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Claudia Rankine on artistic freedom; and other news.
Deadline Approaches for Chautauqua’s New Prose Prize
Submissions are currently open for the inaugural Chautauqua Janus Prize. An award of $2,500 and publication in Chautauqua will be given annually for a short story or essay by an emerging writer. The winner will also be invited to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institute in Chautauqua, New York, this summer. Kazim Ali will judge.
Named for the Roman god Janus, who looks to both future and past, the new prize honors writing “with a command of craft that renovates our understandings of both” and seeks formally inventive works “that upset and reorder literary conventions, historical narratives, and readers’ imaginations.”
Using the online submission system, submit up to 15,000 words of fiction or nonfiction with a $20 entry fee by March 31. Writers who have not yet published a full-length collection are eligible. Stories and essays must either be unpublished, forthcoming this year, or published no earlier than April 2017.
The Chautauqua Institution sponsors interdisciplinary art and educational programs, events, awards, and residencies throughout the year. In addition to the Janus Prize, the institution awards the annual Chautauqua Prize and Editors Prize for writers. Visit the website for more information.
Photo: Kazim Ali (Credit: Tanya Rosen-Jones)
Pages
