Celebratory Roundup!

by Jane Ciabattari | May-22-2009

As summer’s official start is upon us, some good news among NBCCers.

Outgoing NBCC board member Marcela Valdes is a new Nieman, class of 2010, with an arts and culture fellowship to the Harvard-based program.

John Freeman’s “The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox,” is set for October 2009.

Eric Miles Williamson has a new novel due out any minute, “Welcome to Oakland.” And in 2010, a book of criticism called “Say it Hot: Essays on Writers Living, Dying, and Dead,” and a short story collection, “14 Fictional Positions.”

Lizzie Skurnick’s “Shelf Discovery” due out in July.

Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians,” coming in August (I just read a galley, enthralling).

Rebecca Skloot has new book coming out from Crown in February 2010. “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” here. She also has a regular column in XX, the new Slate publication for women.

Just in time for summer, new issue of Bookforum chockablock with goodies:Donna Seaman on Stacey Levine’s “The Girl with Brown Fur,” Maud Newton asks, “What Would Jesus Buy?”Ben Schwartz on Glen David Gould’s “Sunnyside,”  yrs truly on Kate Christensen’s “Trouble,” Daphne Merkin on the new biography of Jean Rhys, Albert Mobilio on Rebecca Keller’s “Woman Twirling.”

Robin Hemley, on the road to promote his new book “The Do-Over,” has this in the WSJ about things that could have killed him.