“This story is not just about an immigrant girl making her way through the world, but it’s a story of a girl who is fighting hard for her American dream.” In this video, Reyna Grande discusses her memoir A Dream Called Home (Atria Books, 2018), a sequel to her best-selling memoir The Distance Between Us, and the inspiration she hopes her books will bring to young readers.
“I became a writer not because I was seeking community but rather because I thought it would be something I could do alone and hidden in the privacy of my own room,” says Sigrid Nunez in her acceptance speech for the 2018 National Book Award in fiction, which she won for her seventh novel, The Friend (Riverhead Books, 2018). “How lucky to have discovered that writing books made the miraculous possible: to be removed from the world and to be a part of the world at the same time.”
Ten finalists have been selected for the 2019 Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Awards. The Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award offers a prize of $100,000 to a mid-career poet, while the Kate Tufts Discovery Award offers a prize of $10,000 for a first book by an emerging poet. Both prizes are given for books published in the previous year.
This year’s finalists for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award are Tyree Daye for River Hymns (American Poetry Review Press), Diana Khoi Nguyen for Ghost Of (Omnidawn Publishing), Justin Phillip Reed for Indecency (Coffee House Press), Vanessa Angélica Villarreal for Beast Meridian (Noemi Press), and Javier Zamora for Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press).
The finalists for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award are CAConrad for While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books), Terrance Hayes for American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (Penguin Books), Brenda Hillman for Extra Hidden Life, Among the Days (Wesleyan University Press), Dawn Lundy Martin for Good Stock Strange Blood (Coffee House Press), and Craig Santos Perez for from unincorporated territory [lukao] (Omnidawn).
Timothy Donnelly chaired the judging committee this year. Winners will be announced in February.
The Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award was established in 1992 by Kate Tufts at Claremont Graduate University; the Kate Tufts Discovery Award followed in 1993. The awards are given to provide recognition, visibility and financial support to poets.
“When I have writer’s block, I feel trapped in a small, airless box. When I watch movies, I feel free, so it only makes sense that I run to movies when I’m stuck. A few years ago, I decided to watch more classic and foreign films. I haven’t suffered significant writer’s block since. Sure, I get temporarily jammed from time to time. Who knows why? I suppose the blank page can be terrifying, and sometimes I don’t feel particularly brave. But great movies remind me that storytelling can be incredibly fun. Having fun is liberating. Liberation is freedom. The 1959 version of Imitation of Life, an adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s 1933 novel, is one example of a film that unstuck me. I had been working on my novel for months by then and had trouble determining my protagonist’s stakes. Imitation of Life helped me step out of myself for a few hours. It’s such a passionate and tightly constructed story about women supporting each other against racism and sexism. The final tear-inducing scene is an all-time wonder. I couldn’t help but feel inspired. I found the core of my own book soon after watching the film. Movie magic helped me soar.”
—Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of We Cast a Shadow (One World, 2019)
“I do hope one day to be free of this body’s dry wood…” In this Button Poetry video, Kaveh Akbar, author of the poetry collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017), reads a poem that was originally published in Tin House’s “The Rehab Issue.”
Ophelia is a retelling of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet from the perspective of the Prince of Denmark’s love interest. Directed by Claire McCarthy, the feature film stars Daisy Ridley in the title role, Tom Felton as Laertes, George MacKay as Hamlet, Clive Owen as Claudius, and Naomi Watts as Gertrude.
This morning the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced the finalists for its 2018 awards. The awards are given annually for books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, criticism, autobiography, and biography published in the previous year.
The finalists in poetry are Terrance Hayes for American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (Penguin Books), Ada Limón for The Carrying (Milkweed Editions), Erika Meitner for Holy Moly Carry Me (BOA Editions), Diane Seuss for Still Life With Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Graywolf Press), and Adam Zagajewski for Asymmetry, translated by Clare Cavanagh (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
The finalists in fiction are Anna Burns for Milkman (Graywolf Press), Patrick Chamoiseau for Slave Old Man, translated by Linda Coverdale (New Press), Denis Johnson for The Largesse of the Sea Maiden (Random House), Rachel Kushner for The Mars Room (Scribner), and Luis Alberto Urrea for The House of Broken Angels (Little, Brown).
The finalists in autobiography are Richard Beard for The Day That Went Missing: A Family’s Story (Little, Brown), Nicole Chung for All You Can Ever Know (Catapult), Rigoberto González for What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood (University of Wisconsin Press), Nora Krug for Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home (Scribner), Nell Painter for Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over (Counterpoint), and Tara Westover for Educated (Random House).
The NBCC also announced that Tommy Orange has won the John Leonard Prize for his debut novel, There There (Knopf). The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing was awarded to editor, columnist, and NPR Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan, while Arte Público Press received the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. Visit the NBCC website to read the full list of finalists, including those in the categories of general nonfiction, biography, and criticism.
Established in 1975, the National Book Critics Circle Awards are selected by the NBCC’s board of directors, composed of twenty-four editors and critics from leading print and online publications. Last year’s winners included poet Layli Long Soldier and novelist Joan Silber. The 2018 winners will be announced on March 14 at the New School in New York City.
Yaa Gyasi and Zadie Smith speak with Courtney Martin about representation and risks in writing, the power of fiction to invoke curiosity and transform behavior, issues of history and identity, and their current projects at the 2018 Obama Foundation Summit.
Louisville,
KY
40207
Louisville,
KY
40207
Louisville,
KY
40207
Louisville,
KY
40207
