NBCC President John Freeman moderates a panel of writers who also edit, teach, and travel across cultures, discussing how the cultural convergences of the Bay Area help shape today’s literary culture.

PANELISTS
Daniel Alarcon, fiction writer (LOST CITY RADIO, WAR BY CANDLELIGHT),associate editor of the Lima-based magazine Etiqueta Negra, co-editor of Virginia Quarterly Review’s Latin American issue.

Sylvia Brownrigg, critic (The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, The New Statesman, Salon), fiction writer (TEN WOMEN WHO SHOOK THE WORLD, THE DELIVERY ROOM, forthcoming MORALITY TALE).

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, co author, FAREWELL TO MANZANAR, novelist (THE LEGEND OF FIRE HORSE WOMAN).

James D. Houston, co-author, FAREWELL TO MANZANAR, novelist (CONTINENTAL DRIFT, SNOW MOUNTAIN PASSAGE, BIRD OF ANOTHER HEAVEN, THE LAST PARADISE), professor, essayist , co-editor, THE LITERATURE OF CALIFORNIA (Volumes 1 and 2).

Micheline Aharonian Marcom, novelist (THE DAYDREAMING BOY, THREE APPLES FELL FROM HEAVEN), creative writing professor (Mills College).

Al Young, California poet laureate, essayist, novelist, memoirist, (author COASTAL NIGHTS AND INLAND AFTERNOONS, THE SOUND OF DREAMS REMEMBERED, SEDUCTION BY LIGHT, MINGUS, MINGUS: TWO MEMOIRS), professor, co-editor, THE LITERATURE OF CALIFORNIA (Volumes 1 and 2).

NBCC board member Jane Ciabattari moderates a panel discussing who to watch for, what they are working on, and new forms that might appear (including new technology).

PANELISTS
Sandy Dijkstra, literary agent
Eli Horowitz, Publisher, McSweeney’s Books
Suzanne Kleid, City Lights Books and KQED blogger
David Kipen, NEA Director of Literature/BIG READ, former NBCC board member.
Michael Ray, editor ZOETROPE:ALL STORY
Michelle Richmond, author (THE GIRL IN THE FALL-AWAY DRESS, THE YEAR OF FOG), blogger (Sans Serif), editor (Fiction Attic)
Greg Sarris, fiction writer (GRAND AVENUE, WATERMELON NIGHTS), screenwriter, college professor, Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

Check back for a list of finalists who will read at the event, which is free and open to the public

Open to all NBCC members

$25, payable via paypal (bring receipt for entrance) or by check at the door. Reservations required. Open to current members only. Contact Jennifer Reese (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) to RSVP.

Announcement of the 2007 NBCC Award winners. The event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the awards ceremony. Tickets are $45 and available via cash or check at the door, or via online payment here.

Join the NBCC and PEN American Center in honoring the 2009 PEN/Beyond Margins Awards. This year’s winners are Uwem Akpan for Say You’re One of Them, a new Oprah pick; NBCC poetry award winner Juan Felipe Herrera for Half the World in Light,; and Lily Hoang for her poetry collection Changing. They will be reading from their work, and joining W.W. Norton editor Brendan Curry in a conversation about “Crossing Over,” moderated by NBCC President Jane Ciabattari.

Literati-a-Go-Go
hosts the National Book Critics Circle
Pointless Holiday Mingle

Whiskeytown Bar
Starts at 6:30 pm, December 9
2-for-1 drinks

29 East 3 Street (between 2nd Ave and Bowery)
212 505 7344

Announcing the finalists for the NBCC awards in autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction and poetry, and the winners of the Sandrof award for lifetime achievement and the Balakian award for criticism.

Special guest announcers: Anthony Appiah, President, PEN American Center, 2008 Sandrof award winner, to announce the Sandrof award; Balakian winner Albert Mobilio to announce the Balakian award; 2008 finalist Elizabeth Strout, fiction; 2008 winner Ariel Sabar, autobiography; 1999 finalist Jean Strouse, biography, 1997 and 2008 finalist Vivian Gornick, criticism; 2008 finalist Brenda Shaughnessy, poetry, and 2000 nonfiction winner Ted Conover.

Reading by finalists for the NBCC awards in autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The event is free and open to the public.

Annual NBCC Membership Meeting, March 11, 2010, 10:00 am - 12:30 pm, with a presentation on Advanced Social Media for Book Critics and Others in the Book Biz by Prof. Sree Sreenivasan, Dean of Student Affairs, Columbia Journalism School & contributing editor, DNAinfo.com and a panel on The Next Decade in Book Culture featuring current and incoming board members with perspectives from around the US: Mark Athitakis (Washington, D.C.), Colette Bancroft (St. Petersburg), Karen Long (Cleveland) Scott McLemee (Washington D.C.) and Elizabeth Taylor (Chicago).

$25, payable via paypal (bring receipt for entrance) or by check at the door. Reservations required. Open to current members only.

NBCC Awards Ceremony: Announcement of the 2009 NBCC Award winners will take place at 6:00 p.m. in The New School University’s Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12th St., New York City. The event is free and open to the public.

Tickets for this event are $40 until March 1 and $45 thereafter (bring Paypal receipt for entrance) and at the door.

NBCC AT AWP IN DENVER:

Friday, April 9 at 10:30 am

Rooms 401, 402
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level
F140.

National Book Critics Circle: The Practice and Purpose of Poetry
Reviewing. (Kevin Prufer, Matthew Zapruder, Craig Morgan Teicher, Nickole
Brown, Timothy Donnelly.)

Poetry books sell in small numbers, yet the poetry publishing scene is
booming with new books. Readers’ enthusiasm often takes the form of book
reviewing—in literary journals, on blogs, and in the pages of newspapers
and magazines. There’s some debate about what the point of poetry
reviewing really is: to explain esoteric writing? To keep the art form
from getting sloppy? To please the poet under consideration? In this
panel, poetry reviewers, publishers, and poets will debate these
questions.

The Roger Shattuck Conference on the Future of Criticism at the Center for
Fiction, 17 East 47th Street, April 17, 1 pm. 

NBCC members please note: This conference is free, but because of limited
space, RSVP required to events@centerforfiction.org The Center won’t let
anyone in who is not registered. 

The Future of Criticism
                  April 17, 2010

    1:00-1:10pm Film on Roger Shattuck
    1:10 -1:30pm     Robert Weil remembers Roger Shattuck

    1;30-1:45pm     Presentation of Shattuck Awards for Criticism

    1:45–2:45pm Provocation:  Literary Criticism Today

            Conversation between Daniel Mendelsohn & Thomas Mallon

            Introduced by:  Noreen Tomassi
    2:45-3:00pm Break

    3:00-4:15pm Panel— Criteria & Approaches

            Christopher Ricks, Denis Donoghue, Liesl Schillinger

                    Moderator:  Morris Dickstein

    4:15-4:30pm Break

    4:30-5:45pm Panel—The Future of Criticism

                Jed Perl, Maud Newton, John Freeman

                Moderator:  Jane Ciabattari

    5:45-6:30pm Closing Comments:  Shattuck, Proust, and The Future

                Conversation between Michel Braudeau, Editor,
Nouvelle Revue

                Française &  Lorin Stein, The Paris Review

Wine and Cheese Reception Following

Provocation: Literary Criticism Today
Thomas Mallon’s, Auhor of seven novels, including Henry and Clara, Bandbox
and Fellow Travelers and non-fiction books on plagiarism, diaries, letters
and the Kennedy assassination, as well as two volumes of essays (Rockets
and Rodeos and In Fact). His work appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic
Monthly, The New York Times Book Review and other publications; has taught
at Vassar College, the George Washington University and the Bread Loaf
Writers’ Conference. The recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller
fellowships, as well as the National Book Critics Circle award for
reviewing, he has been literary editor of Gentlemen’s Quarterly and deputy
chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Daniel Mendelsohn. Award-winning author of six books, critic, and
contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York, The New York
Review of Books, The Paris Review among others. He is the recipient of the
National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Review, and the George
Jean Nathan Prize for Drama Criticism, and the Guggenheim Foundation
Fellowship.

Panel – Criteria & Approaches
Dr. Morris Dickstein. Literary and cultural critic and author, currently
the Distinguished Professor of English and Theater at the Graduate Center
of City University of New York.

Dr. Denis Donoghue. The Henry James Professor in English and American
Letters at New York Univeristy, Chair of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences’ Nominating Committee, and a Fellow with the British Academy, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Council of Learned
Societies, his most recent books is On Eloquence.

Dr. Christopher Ricks. William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the
Humanities at Boston University, co-director of the Editorial Institute
and a Professor of Poetry at Oxford; editor, critical writer and former
president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics.

Liesl Schillinger. Literary critic and regular contributor for the New
York Times Book Review.

Panel – The Future Of Criticism
Jane Ciabattari. President of the National Book Critics Circle, a blogger
on Critical Mass and the author of the short-story collection Stealing The
Fire.

John Freeman. Former president of the National Book Critics Circle and a
prolific book reviewer, currently the American editor of Granta.

Maud Newton. Writer, critic and blogger, whose blog and work has been
sited in The New York Times Book Review, New York Magazine, The New Yorker
and Bookforum, among many others.

Jed Perl. Writer and art critic for The New Republic and author of many
books including Paris Without End: On French Art Since World War I, and
most recently Antoine’s Alphabet: Watteau and His World and New Art City:
Manhattan at Mid-Century.

Closing Comments: Shattuck, Proust and the Future
Michel Braudeau. Novelist, former book critic at L’Express, editor at Le
Monde. Currently, Editor-in-Chief of La Nouvelle Revue française; author
of Flight of the Monarch (and Other Reflections) a book of essays.

Lorin Stein. Senior editor at Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, whose authors
include Richard Price, Denis Johnson, recent translations of Roberto
Bolano, Jonathan Franzen, Jefferey Eugenides, among many other prominent
writers; recently named editor of the Paris Review.

Have a conversation with leading literary critics about the work of some of the writers at this year’s Festival—including Sherman Alexie, Quim Monzó, Peter Schneider, Martin Solares, and Peter Stamm. Who are their influences? How has their work been received, both here and abroad? Members of the National Book Critics Circle trace the journey these writers have traveled from publication to translation to critical attention.

This Critical Moment: The Journey—A National Book Critics Circle Conversation
When: Friday, April 30
Where: Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 East 52nd Street, New York City
What time: 1–2:30 p.m.

With NBCC board members Eric Banks, Jane Ciabattari, Rigoberto González,
and Mary Ann Newman , Director of the Catalan Center at New York
University’s Center for European and Mediterranean Studies.

Free but reservations are required. Please call ACF’s reservation line at
(212) 319-5300 ext. 222 or e-mail reservations@acfny.org.

Co-sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum and the National Book Critics
Circle

The Next Decade in Book Culture

A conversation sponsored by the National Book Critics Circle

Moderated by National Book Critics Circle board member John Reed

With these little handy things called books on slated for extinction, what
is a reviewer to do?  IPads, Nooks, Kindles?  What are these little plastic
things with buttons?  And what are they doing to our beloved reflections?
We are set on the launch pad—the engines are heavy with fuel, and are
rumbling.  But where are we going?  We bring together a panel of writers,
editors, and professionals, established on the vanguard, to discuss
prospects for the review and how it may change, in the near future.

Carolyn Kellogg writes about books for the Los Angeles Times. She started
her first litblog in 2004, was the web editor for the radio show
Marketplace and is a blogging consultant for the Getty Museum.

Will Murphy is Executive Editor at Random House.  Previously he was
Humanities Editor at the University of Minnesota Press, and Literary
Editor at the University of California Press.  His authors include Salman
Rushdie, Bernard-Henri Levy, Nassim Taleb, Jeff Shaara, Jon Clinch, Bing
West, and David Brooks.

Ed Nawotka is the founder and editor-in-chief of
PublishingPerspectives.com, a daily online trade magazine for the
international publishing community. He is also a contributing editor at
Publishers Weekly and a widely published freelancer. Prior to starting
Publishing Perspectives, he was book columnist at Bloomberg News and daily
news editor of Publishers Weekly.

Denise Oswald is Editorial Director of Soft Skull Press. Prior to that she
was Senior Editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, where she oversaw the Faber
and Faber list for nearly a decade. While there her authors included
Pulitzer, PEN, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences award winners; as
well as national and regional bestsellers. Among the wide variety of
artists she’s worked with are Colin Beavan, Anne Carson, Courtney Love,
and Neil LaBute. She currently sits on the advisory board of The Feminist
Press. 

John Reed is a National Book Critics Circle board member and Books Editor
of The Brooklyn Rail. His work has been published in Open City, Artnet,
Artforum, Paper Magazine, New York Press, Brooklyn Rail, Timeout New York,
Bomb Magazine, Playboy, Art in America, Los Angeles Times, and many other
venues.  He is author of the novels, A STILL SMALL VOICE (Delacorte
Press), THE WHOLE (MTV / Simon & Schuster), the bestseller, SNOWBALL’S
CHANCE (Roof), the recently released ALL THE WORLD’S A GRAVE: A NEW PLAY
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Penguin/Plume), and the forthcoming TALES OF WOE
(MTV Press).

Craig Morgan Teicher is a poet, critic and blogger.  He is the editor of
MediaBistro’s eBookNewser blog, the poetry editor of Publishers Weekly,
and a prolific freelance reviewer.  His new book of stories and fables,
Cradle Book, is due out in June from BOA Editions. He is a National Book
Critics Circle board member.

Kate Travers is a marketing, media, and branding strategist to publishers,
authors and literary organizations. Most recently, Kate was the Strategic
Marketing and Special Events Director at powerHouse Books and the
powerHouse Arena. Kate began her career in publishing nearly ten years ago
at HarperCollins Publishers. She moved on to become the Director of Mariner
Books at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Strategic Marketing Director at the
Literary Ventures Fund. Kate serves on the Literary Council of The
Brooklyn Book Festival and is a member of the Women’s Media Group.

Introduction by Jane Ciabattari, NBCC president.

Jakob K. Javits Center, Room 1E14
665 West 34th Street
New York, NY

NBCC Reads Conversation on Books about Conjugal Love at Book Passage in Corte Madera, August 4, 7 pm, with NBCC President, Jane Ciabattari, Balakian winner Molly Giles, NBCC members Meredith Maran and Greg Sarris. Including Annie Dillard THE MAYTREEs, Jane Smiley’s A PRIVATE LIFE, Evan Connell’s MR. BRIDGE and MRS. BRIDGE.

Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925-1145
(415) 927-0960

Goofs, gaffes, guilt.  As part of the tumultuous (and free)Litquake NYC Lit Crawl on September 11, the National Book Critics Circle and other critics make public apologies for their crimes. Critic Dale Peck and current and former NBCC board members including Lev Grossman, Lizzie Skurnick, John Reed, Mark Rotella and Jane Ciabattari, will plead for forgiveness for villainy and negligence in their reviews.  Heartfelt entreaties from the crowd will make this a thoroughly punishing and satisfying tribunal.

This is the third annual Lit Crawl New York, which originators describe as a madcap concept created by San Francisco’s brilliant literary festival, Litquake, back in 2004. It’s a bar crawl… with literature!

NBCC “Name that Author” returns to the book festival with 2008 champ Brigid Hughes (A Public Space), 2009 champ Martha Southgate (Third Girl from the Left), critics Eric Banks, Steve Kellman, and David Haglund. John Reed (Tales of Woe), emcee. NBCC president Jane Ciabattari, referee/quizmaster.

180 Remsen Street, half a block from Borough Hall main stage, 5:00 PM

Moderator Bethanne Patrick with NBCC members Britt Peterson (Foreign Policy) and Sarah Courteau (Wilson Quarterly), Allan Fallow (features editor at AARP The Magazine), and novelist Rick Moody in conversation about The Next Decade in Book Culture.

NBCC Reads: Gary Giddins, Lore Segal and Brenda Wineapple in conversation with James Marcus, Favorite Books about Conjugal Love.

The Future of Reading panel at Wordstock Festival, Portland, Oregon. October 10, 2010 11:00AM - 12:00PM@ Powell’s Books Stage (Oregon Convention Center)  Is reading on the decline? Many think so. Writers, booksellers, librarians and reviewers all have a stake in the evolving culture of reading, however no one has more to gain or lose than readers. A National Book Critics Circle panel. With Mona Simpson, Matthew Stadler, Michael Schaub, and David Biespiel.

With NBCC finalists Marlon James, Jayne Anne Phillips and Brenda Shaughnessy

National Book Critics Circle Conversation, The Next Decade in Book Culture, at Book Passage, San Francisco

With moderator Oscar Villalon, NBCC biography finalist Jason Roberts, Meg Pokrass and Michael Lukas

National Book Critics Circle and Graywolf Press at the Minneapolis Public LIbrary: A Reading by NBCC Award Winners and Finalists, including Eula Biss, Marlon James, and Stephen Burt. A conversation about criticism in 2010 after the reading will be moderated by Graywolf editor Jeff Shotts.

Jane Ciabattari, Lev Grossman, Roxana Robinson, in conversation with Noreen Tomassi.

Join Literati-A-Go-Go hosts David Nudo, John Reed, Jane Ciabattari, Libby Jordan and Donna Bagdasarian

$4 - $7 Drink Specials

Fabulous Door Prizes

RSVP: janeciab@gmail.com

Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, all have reinvented their book review sections. Come hear the editors tell how and what’s coming next.

Barbara Hoffert, Book Review Editor, Library Journal, NBCC Awards VP
Robert Messenger, Books Editor, The Wall Street Journal
Craig Morgan Teicher, Senior Editor,  Publishers Weekly, NBCC Tech VP
Jennifer B. McDonald, Staff Editor, The New York Times Book Review
Moderated by NBCC President Jane Ciabattari

The National Book Critics Circle and Johnson County Library present “The Next Decade in Book Culture,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan.18, Johnson County Central Resource Library, 9875 W. 87th St. in Overland Park, Ks. John Mark Eberhart moderates, with Denise Low, Mark Luce, Steve Weinberg, and John Mark Eberhart.

POSTPONED TO LATER DATE, DUE TO SNOW.

Akashic presents Philadelphia Noir with special guests

Cosponsored by the National Book Critics Circle

Featuring Carlin Romano, editor of Philadelphia Noir

Philadelphia Noir contributors Halimah Marcus and Laura Spagnoli

Bronx Noir editor/Manhattan Noir contributor S.J. Rozan

Tim Mcloughlin, editor of Brooklyn Noir 1, 2, and 3

National Book Critics Circle awards finalists’ announcement and celebration
January 22, 2011, 6-8 pm
WNYCs’ Greene Performance Space, 44 Charlton Street, New York, NY
RSVP janeciab@gmail.com

Guest announcers:

Joan Acocella, 2010 Balakian winner, to announce the winner of this year’s Nona Balakian award for excellence in reviewing.

Jason Epstein, former Sandrof winner, to announce the winner of this year’s Ivan Sandrof award for lifetime achievement.

Zadie Smith, NBCC fiction finalist, to announce the five finalists in fiction.

Annette Gordon Reed, NBCC nonfiction finalist, to announce the five finalists in nonfiction.

Carolyn Forche, NBCC poetry finalist, to announce the 5 finalists in poetry.

Honor Moore, NBCC autobiography finalist, to announce the 5 finalists in autobiography.

Blake Bailey, NBCC biography winner, to announce the 5 finalists in biography.

Stephen Burt, NBCC criticism finalist, to announce the 5 finalists in criticism.

This announcement will come shortly after 6 pm, after a day-long board meeting at which the 24 NBCC board members vote for the finalists.

Complete list of National Book Critics Circle award winners and finalists, 1975-2010 at
www.bookcritics.org/awards

Friday, January 28. Free
6:30 p.m., Theresa Lang Center, 55 W. 13th Street, 2nd floor

A National Book Critics Circle conversation with book or feature editors from the Brooklyn Rail, The Daily Beast, Publishers Weekly, Frisky,  The Millions, Tin House & more.

With Lucas Wittman, The Daily Beast;  Monica de la Torre, BOMB magazine; John Reed, The Brooklyn Rail; Max McGee, The Millions; Mark Rotella, Senior Editor, Publishers Weekly; Frisky editor Kate Torgovnick, Rob Spillman, editor, Tin House magazine. Moderated by NBCC member Susan Shapiro.

National Book Critics Circle Reading at the AWP. NBCC President Jane Ciabattari hosts a reading by NBCC award winners and finalists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Edward P. Jones, Jayne Anne Phillips, Elizabeth Strout, and Colson Whitehead.

NBCC nonfiction and criticism finalists in conversation with nonfiction committee chair Art Winslow and criticism committee chair John Reed: With nonfiction finalists Siddhartha Mukherjee and Isabel Wilkerson, criticism finalists Clare Cavanagh, Susie Linfield, and Ander Monson. Hosted by Jerry Williams.

NBCC biography and autobiography finalists in conversation with biography chair Eric Banks and autobiography co chair Rigoberto Gonzalez. With biography finalists Sarah Bakewell and Yunte Huang, autobiography finalists Patti Smith, Reiko Rehna Rizzuto, and others. Hosted by Brenda Wineapple.

Free and open to the public.

Readers include:

Fiction finalists Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen, David Grossman, translator Damion Searles reading for Hans Keilson, and Donna Tartt reading for Paul Murray.

Biography finalists Sarah Bakewell, Yunte Huang, and Thomas Powers.

Criticism finalists Elif Batuman, Terry Castle, Clare Cavanagh, Susie Linfield, and Ander Monson.

Nonfiction finalists S.C. Gwynne, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Isabel Wilkerson.

Autobiography finalists Kai Bird, David Dow, Christopher Hitchens, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Darin Strauss, and Patti Smith.

Poetry finalists Anne Carson, Kathleen Graber, Terrance Hayes, and Kay Ryan.

The Awards Ceremony is free and open to the public. 

Reception to follow at Lang Center, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY

Tickets for the reception are $45:

NBCC Reads asks: What books would you like to see back in print? Join us for a discussion of the titles that have disappeared—wrongfully, unjustifiably—from bookstore shelves.

Moderated by Eric Banks, NBCC board member & curator, NBCC Reads
with Michael Miller, editor at Bookforum; he’s written for Time Out New York, Spin, the Village Voice Literary Supplement, and the Believer
NBCC autobiography finalist Honor Moore, poet, memoirist.
& Gary Giddins, jazz critic, winner of the NBCC award for criticism, and author of Warning Shadows: Home Alone with Classic Cinema

Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal (moderator) w/ John Reed (Brooklyn Rail), Tim Brown, John Madera, John Deming.

These influential and celebrated American critics will appear in rotation before every Festival event with the intention to enhance Festival audience already-extensive list of must-reads. NBCC Stand-up Critics include Eric Banks, Jane Ciabattari, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Lev Grossman, Laura Miller, and Roxana Robinson.

April 25, 7:30 PM—- May 1, 8:00 PM

Participants: Morris Dickstein, Carsten Jensen, Fintan O’Toole, and Cynthia Ozick
Moderated by Jane Ciabattari

The critic’s voice indelibly shapes the works we read. But in an age when readers are rapidly migrating to Twitter book clubs, literary websites, Amazon reader reviews, how will the critic continue to lead literary conversations? Join a conversation about the new power of the book review and the emergence of a unique reader experience in the age of the digital revolution.

NBCC, Literati a Go Go & NYU’s Creative Writing Program invite you to a pre-BEA bash Monday May 23 from 7 to 9 pm

National Book Critics Circle presents “Book Reviews Online.” Panelists from the New York Times Book Review, The Daily Beast/Newsweek, NPR & Publishers Weekly update us on the new form in which many reviews and author interviews reach readers (this includes podcasts, video, expanded online content and social network platforms).

Jennifer McDonald, Staff Editor, The New York Times Book Review
Isaac Chotiner, Executive Editor, The Book: An Online Review at The New Republic
Parul Sehgal, Reviews Editor, Publishers Weekly & NBCC Balakian award winner
Lucas Wittman, Book Editor, The Daily Beast/Newsweek
Moderated by Jane Ciabattari, Vice President/Online,  National Book Critics Circle

National Book Critics Circle members talk about literary prizes with Chicago Tribune literary editor Elizabeth Taylor, Karen R. Long of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Booklist’s Barbara Seaman and Art Winslow.

Interactive discussion of The Next Decade in Book Culture with former Kansas poet laureate Denise Low, educator Mark Luce of the Barstow School, author Steve Weinberg and moderator John Mark Eberhart, the library’s Reader’s Advisory Coordinator.

With:
Literary agents Julie Just & Betsy Lerner
O Magazine book editor Sara Nelson
Brooklyn Rail editor John Reed
NY Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus
author David Goodwillie & Scribner’s editor Paul Whitlach
Moderated by Susan Shapiro.
Free admission

Every year, the National Book Critics Circle selects awards in six different literary categories, including autobiography/memoir. In Fall for the Book’s second annual partnership with the NBCC, critic and NBCC board member Marcela Valdes leads a discussion on the popularity and significance of this genre, welcoming several distinguished writers in this field.

Peter Manseau is the author the memoir Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son; the novel Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter; and most recently Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead. He has won the National Jewish Book Award, the Sophie Brody Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Jewish Literature, and the Ribalow Prize for Fiction, and he was shortlisted for the Mercantile Library First Novel Award. He is also a founding editor of KillingTheBuddha.com and coauthor of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible.

E. Ethelbert Miller is the author of several collections of poems; his most recent, How We Sleep On The Nights We Don’t Make Love, was an Independent Publisher Award Finalist. His memoir Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer was selected by DC WE READ for its one book, one city program sponsored by the D.C. Public Libraries, and in his most recent memoir, The 5th Inning, Miller returns to “baseball, the game of his youth, in order to find the metaphor that will provide the measurement of his life.”

Ariel Sabar’s debut book, My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for his Family’s Past, won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. His second book, Heart of the City, was published this year. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Monthly, and other publications.

Panel moderator Marcela Valdes is the books editor of The Washington Examiner and a contributing editor for Publishers Weekly. She writes for The Nation, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, and Bookforum, among other publications. She was a founder of Críticas, the English-language magazine devoted to Spanish-language books.  She is now serving her second term on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle.

The NBCC panel discussion takes place on Thursday, September 22, at 6 p.m. in Student Union Building II, Rooms 3, 4 and 5.

These authors are among the nearly 150 authors, artists and performers participating in the 13th annual Fall for the Book Festival, September 18-23, at George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus and at venues throughout Northern Virginia, D.C., and Maryland.

To stay up-to-date with the latest news on this year’s festival, bookmark the festival’s webpage here or join the mailing list on the left of the homepage to have information delivered directly to your inbox.

URBAN MIRRORS

The New School and the National Book Critics Circle present

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (AND BROOKLYN AND THE BRONX)

A reading/conversation with NBCC award finalists and winners in prose whose lives in the New York metropolitan area are reflected in their work.

With Darin Strauss, novelist and author of Half a Life, NBCC Award Winner in Autobiography; Lynne Tillman, novelist, essayist, short story writer (Someday This Will Be Funny) and author of NBCC award fiction finalist in No Lease on Life, and David Hajdu, NBCC award finalist in biography for Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, and Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña.

Moderated by Jane Ciabattari, NBCC VP/Onlne, former NBCC president (2008-2011)

Conversation with Parul Sehgal, Beth Gutcheon, Rob Spilman.
Moderated by Jane Ciabattari.

A Litcrawl event with Lev Grossman, Chad Harbach, and Meghan O’Rourke; moderator, Steven G. Kellman; a collaboration with the National Book Critics Circle

If the memoir craze is over, why is everybody still so obsessed with them and the bestseller lists overstuffed with first person nonfiction stories? Join this lively, candid discussion spilling the inside scoop on the fate and state of writing, reviewing and publishing all different kinds of autobiographies.

Distinguished Panelists Include:

-Tin House editor Rob Spillman

-Lindsay Harrison, author of MISSING

-Her Scribner’s editor Colin Harrison

-Sheila McClear, author of THE LAST OF THE LIVE NUDE GIRLS

-WME Literary agent Rebecca Oliver

-Literary agent Ryan Harbage

-Publishers Weekly editor Mark Rotella, author of AMORE

moderator NBCC member & LIGHTING UP/UNHOOKED memoirist Susan Shapiro

SAVE THE DATE

Featured reading: Bonnie Jo Campbell, Jennifer Egan, Jane Smiley, Darin Strauss, Isabel Wilkerson, hosted by Jane Ciabattari. Hilton Chicago and Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, Illinois.

Please join us on March 8 for the annual general membership meeting of the
National Book Critics Circle. In addition to NBCC business, the general
membership meeting includes two panels that you will not want to miss!

10 AM
Digital Galleys/Digital Catalogues/Digital Everything: How Publishers Are
Interacting with Reviewers Today

Panelists Include: Katie Freeman, Publicity Manager, Farrar Straus Giroux;
Peter Miller, Publicity Director, Liveright (Norton); John Oakes, Publisher,
OR Books; Christian Purdy, Director of Publicity, Oxford University Press
(USA); and Susan Ruszala, President, NetGalley

11 AM
YA and Beyond: The Flexible Boundaries of Publishing for Young Adult Readers

Panelists Include: Lev Grossman, Time magazine book critic and the author of
the novels The Magicians and The Magician King; Laura Miller, co-founder of
and staff writer at Salon.com and the author of The Magician’s Book: A
Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia; Ben Schrank, president and publisher of
Razorbill and author of the forthcoming Love is a Canoe; Lizzie Skurnick,
critic and author of Shelf Discovery, a memoir of teen reading, as well as
of 10 books in the Sweet Valley, Alias, and Love Stories series; and Tina
Wexler, literary agent at ICM, representing authors in both the children’s
and adult marketplace.

This panel is open to the public.

Tickets for the membership lunch are $25.

The Awards Ceremony is free and open to the public.

Reception to follow at Lang Center, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY

Tickets for the reception are $50.

With Arne Bellstorf, Ruth Franklin, Julya Rabinowich, and Lorin Stein; moderated by Eric Banks and Susan Bernofsky

When a translated work is under review, what exactly is being critiqued? Is it the work itself or the quality of its translation? How does reviewing a translation differ from reviewing a work in its original language? Should the critic be bilingual? An expert in the literature and history of a foreign culture? Join an expert panel of international authors, critics, and translators as they explore the nexus of translation and criticism.

Confirmed readers include:

Autobiography
Reyna Grande, The Distance Between Us (Atria Books)
Maureen N. McLane, My Poets (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Anthony Shadid, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), reading by George Hodgman, Anthony Shadid’s longtime editor

Biography
Lisa Cohen, All We Know: Three Lives (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Michael Gorra, Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece (A Liveright Book: W. W. Norton)
Tom Reiss, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (Crown Publishers)

Criticism
Paul Elie, Reinventing Bach (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Daniel Mendelsohn, Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture (New York Review Books)
Kevin Young, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness (Graywolf Press)

Fiction
Laurent Binet, HHhH, tr. by Sam Taylor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ecco)
Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master’s Son (Random House)
Lydia Millet, Magnificence (W. W. Norton)
Zadie Smith, NW (The Penguin Press)

Nonfiction
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (Random House)
Steve Coll, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (The Penguin Press)
Jim Holt, Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story (A Liveright Book: W. W. Norton)
Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity (Scribner)

Poetry
David Ferry, Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations (University of Chicago Press)
Allan Peterson, Fragile Acts (McSweeney’s Books)
A. E. Stallings, Olives (TriQuarterly: Northwestern University Press)

The Awards Ceremony is free and open to the public.

Reception to follow at the Lang Center, 55 W. 13th Street, New York. Tickets to the reception are $50.

At this year’s annual meeting, we’ll be discussing the organization of our awards, including the possibility of creating a new prize that would be awarded by a direct vote of the membership.

This meeting is open to all members of the National Book Critics Circle.

In recent years many traditional print book-review outlets have cut back on space—or, worse, disappeared entirely. But the same period has also been marked by the rise of upstart publications that have taken advantage of both the roominess of the web and the tactile pleasures of print to reinvent the literary journal for a new generation. How have these publications changed the way we think about who writes criticism, where it appears, and what shape it takes? Does social media alter what a critic says, and what qualifies as fair game for criticism? And do these new publications signal a growth in opportunities for reviewers after years of decline? We’ll explore these questions with editors at four leading literary journals that are recent arrivals on the scene.

Panelists

Mark Athitakis (moderator) is an NBCC board member whose reviews and essays have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times Book Review, Washington City Paper, the New Republic, the Barnes & Noble Review, and numerous other publications. He has been a featured guest on book-related topics on Minnesota Public Radio and the Diane Rehm Show, and is founder of the literary blog American Fiction Notes. He lives outside Washington, D.C.

Uzoamaka Maduka is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of “The American Reader.” In 2013, she was named as one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” for media. She is the former online managing editor of Interview Magazine, and has also held positions with Verso, the London-based publishing house and affiliate of The New Left Review, and Slate.

Alex Shephard is a founding editor of Full Stop. He lives in Brooklyn.

Tom Lutz is the founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the author of Doing Nothing, Crying, Cosmopolitan Vistas, American Nervousness 1903, and other works. He has taught at several universities and now is in Creative Writing at UC Riverside.

Emily Cooke is an editor at the New Inquiry and a freelance writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the London Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement, and n+1, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn.

This event is free and open to the public.

For the past three years, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts has been conducting a count of how many of the books reviewed by prominent publications were written by women and by men, and how many of the book reviews were assigned to female and male reviewers. The lopsided results have helped begin a conversation about gender bias in the literary world. How can we as book critics and editors address this issue?

Panelists

Laurie Muchnick (moderator) is the book editor at Bloomberg News and president of the NBCC. She has previously been book editor at Newsday and an editor at the Voice Literary Supplement.

Erin Belieu is the author of four poetry collections, all from Copper Canyon Press, including Slant Six, forthcoming in fall of 2014. Belieu’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in places such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Atlantic, Slate and Best American Poetry. Belieu is, with Cate Marvin, the co founder of VIDA: Women In Literary Arts. She teaches in the writing program at Florida State University and is Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Writers Conference.

Pamela Paul was named editor of The New York Times Book Review in April, having served as features editor and children’s book editor. She is the author of three books, The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony, Pornified, and Parenting, Inc. She has written for the Atlantic, The Economist, Vogue, Time, The Washington Post and writes widely for other sections at the Times.

Kathryn Schulz is the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error and the book critic for New York Magazine. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, the Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, and the New York Times Book Review, among other publications. In 2012, she won the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Prize for Excellence in Reviewing. She was a 2004 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in International Journalism, and has reported from throughout Central and South America, Japan, and, most recently, the Middle East.

Rob Spillman is editor and co-founder of Tin House, a fifteen-year-old bi-coastal (Brooklyn and Portland) literary magazine. He is also the executive editor of Tin House Books and co-founder of the Tin House Literary Festival. His writing has appeared in BookForum, the Boston Review, Connoisseur, Details, GQ, Nerve, the New York Times Book Review, Real Simple, Rolling Stone, Salon, Spin, Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Worth, among other publications. He is also the editor of Gods and Soldiers: the Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing.

Meg Wolitzer’s novels include, most recently, The Interestings, as well as The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, and The Wife, among others. Her short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize.  Wolitzer has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Columbia University, Barnard College and SUNY Stony Brook Southampton. In the fall, along with singer-songwriter Suzzy Roche, she will be a guest artist in the Princeton Atelier program at Princeton University.

This event is free and open to the public.

All’s Fair?: Book Reviews & The Missing Code Of Ethics

Moderated by Marcela Valdes

Should book reviewers be required to follow a code of ethics, the way many other journalists do? The Society of Professional Journalists, for example, publishes a set of guidelines that are widely accepted in the newspaper industry, but book reviewers have no comparable code. Should there be one? If so, what should its rules be? How would it affect bloggers and moonlighting critics-novelists asked to write about fellow novelists, say, or experts asked to assess competitors in their field? Would such a code do anything to restrain the back-scratching and score-settling that can taint current reviews? The panelists will tackle these questions and others as part of an ongoing survey that the NBCC is conducting into ethics in 2013.

Panelists:

Maureen Corrigan (National Public Radio)
Carlin Romano (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Parul Sehgal (New York Times Book Review)
Eric Simonoff (William Morris Endeavor)
Lorin Stein (Paris Review)

Presenters:

Lev Grossman, Author

Charles McNair, Author

Teresa Weaver, Author

Gina Webb, Author

Kate Tuttle, Moderator

National Book Critics Circle celebrates award winning authors Amy Tan and Ben Fountain, whose first novels were honored by the NBCC. Moderated by NBCC VP/Online Jane Ciabattari.

A Reading and Conversation with Ben Fountain and Amy Tan, sponsored by the National Book Critics Circle.

Two National Book Critics Circle award-honored novelists, Ben Fountain and Amy Tan, read from their work and talk with NBCC Vice President/Online Jane Ciabattari about inspiration, research, readers, awards, the unique challenges of first novels, and the imaginative process that gives their work originality. Since 1974, the National Book Critics Circle awards have honored the best literature published in English. These are the only awards chosen by the critics themselves.

3 PM to 4:15 PM
Ballroom ABC, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6

The awards ceremony is free and open to the public. Tickets to the benefit after-party are $75, and may be purchased now. NBCC members may purchase tickets in advance for $50. Please select the appropriate option in the drop-down menu below.

The awards ceremony is free and open to the public. Tickets to the benefit after-party are $75, and may be purchased now. NBCC members may purchase tickets in advance for $50. Please select the appropriate option in the drop-down menu below.

Three National Book Critics Circle Award honorees—Jayne Anne Phillips, a fiction finalist for her novel Machine Dreams, Lily King, a fiction finalist for her novel Euphoria, and Anthony Marra, winner of the NBCC’s inaugural John Leonard Award for first book—read from their work for 20 minutes each and discuss the challenges of writing novels—especially first novels—in a moderated conversation with critic Jane Ciabattari, NBCC Vice President/Online.

The awards ceremony is free and open to the public. Tickets to the benefit after-party are $75, and may be purchased now. NBCC members may purchase tickets in advance for $50. Please select the appropriate option in the drop-down menu below.

R238. Three National Book Critics Circle award-honored authors—Phil Klay, Héctor Tobar, and Amy Wilentz—read from their work and talk with NBCC Vice President/Online Jane Ciabattari about inspiration, research, readers, awards, the unique challenges of writing from international material (Iraq, Chile, Haiti), and the imaginative process that gives their work originality. The National Book Critics Circle awards have honored the best literature published in English for 40 years.

Co-sponsored by The New School Creative Writing Program.

The awards ceremony is free and open to the public. Tickets to the benefit after-party are $75, and may be purchased now. NBCC members may purchase tickets in advance for $50. Please select the appropriate option in the drop-down menu below.

Co-sponsored by The New School Creative Writing Program.

National Book Critics Circle Presents: Jeffrey Eugenides, Lorrie Moore, Dana Spiotta, moderated by NBCC president Kate Tuttle.  Three National Book Critics Circle–honored novelists read from their work and talk with NBCC President Kate Tuttle about inspiration, research, awards, evolving forms, the unique challenges of novels and short stories, and the imaginative process that shapes their originality. Since 1974, the National Book Critics Circle Awards have honored the best literature published in English. These are the only awards chosen by the critics themselves.

Co-sponsored by The New School Creative Writing Program.

The awards ceremony is free and open to the public. Tickets to the benefit after-party are $75, and may be purchased now. NBCC members may purchase tickets in advance for $50. Please select the appropriate option in the drop-down menu below.

Arts and Culture Author Talks BPL Presents RSVP Co-Presented with the National Book Critics Circle.

Featuring the voices of some of its most acclaimed member-critics, the NBCC asks what it means to be a critic alongside a world in flux. Panelists include Ruth Franklin, who won last year's NBCC biography award for her Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, and contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, and Harper’s; Alexandra Schwartz of The New Yorker (Balakian winner), Rafia Zakaria, author of The Upstairs Wife, contributor to The New Republic, The New York Times, The Baffler, The Guardian and others; Yahdon Israel, Editor-in-Chief of Brooklyn Magazine and NBCC VP/Awards, and Jess Row, author of two story collections and the novel 'Your Face in Mine,' and contributor to The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Threepenny Review, and Boston Review,   Moderated by NBCC board member and Lit Hub contributing editor, Michele Filgate.

Michele Filgate is a contributing editor at Literary Hub and on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. Her work has appeared in Longreads, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Slice, The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, and other publications. She teaches creative nonfiction for The Sackett Street Writers' Workshop and Catapult and is the founder of the Red Ink series. In 2016, Brooklyn Magazine named her one of “The 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture.” 

Ruth Franklin is a book critic, a biographer, and a former editor at The New Republic. Her work appears in many publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and Harper’s. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in biography, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, a Leon Levy Fellowship in biography, and the Roger Shattuck Prize for Criticism. Her first book, A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction (Oxford University Press, 2011), was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Her biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Liveright/W.W. Norton, 2016) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the Christian Gauss Award from Phi Beta Kappa, an Edgar Award, and numerous others. It was a New York Times Notable Book of 2016, a Time magazine top nonfiction book of 2016, and a “best book of 2016” by The Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and others. 

Yahdon Israel is the Editorial Director of Northside Media, Inc. and the Editor-in-Chief of Brooklyn Magazine. He has written for Avidly, The New Inquiry, Brooklyn Magazine, LitHub, and Poets and Writers, and is the Awards and Membership VP of the National Book Critics Circle. He runs a popular Instagram page which promotes literature and fashion under the hashtag Literaryswag, and hosts a web show for writers called LIT.

Jess Row is the author of the novel Your Face in Mine and two collections of short stories, The Train to Lo Wu and Nobody Ever Gets Lost. His essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Boston Review, and elsewhere. His next book, White Flights, a collection of essays on race and the American imagination, will be published by Graywolf in 2019.

Alexandra Schwartz is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing for 2014.

Rafia Zakaria is the author of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan (Beacon 2015) and Veil (Bloomsbury 2017). She is a columnist for Dawn in Pakistan. She writes regularly for Guardian Books, The Baffler, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications.

Please join us for this year’s National Book Critics Circle General Membership meeting

Wednesday, May 30
10 a.m. - 11 a.m.
To be held at 20 Cooper Square, 5th floor

RSVP by May 27th, please. Send your RSVP to membership@bookcritics.org

Coffee and bagels will be provided

Afterwards, please join us at an NBCC panel at Book Expo America, Javits Center, from 12 - 1 p.m.

Join us for a conversation with Paul Beatty and Joan Silber with introductions by Jane Ciabattari, and moderated by Kate Tuttle.

In a moment of rapid change, noted emerging and established critics gather and ask: What is the purpose of criticism now? How do we speak? To whom? Who do we imagine our audience(s) to be, and how do we reach them? As modes and means of distributing information increase, what forms of criticism have use and impact? And most importantly, in a world in flux, are critics activists?

Moderator:
Kate Tuttle, President of the National Book Critics Circle, writes about books for the Boston Globe. Her reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Newsday. Her essays on childhood, race, and politics have appeared in Dame, the Rumpus, and elsewhere.

Jane Ciabattari is a literary critic and author of the story collections Stealing the Fire and California Tales. She is National Book Critics Circle VP/Online (and a former NBCC president), a columnist for BBC Culture and The Literary Hub, and a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto.

Ismail Muhammad is staff writer at the Millions, contributing editor at ZYZZYVA, and a Ph.D. candidate in English at U.C. Berkeley. His nonfiction and criticism have appeared in Slate, Paris Review, the Nation, and other venues. He’s at work on a novel about the Great Migration.

Oscar Villalon is the managing editor of ZYZZYVA. He is a former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as a past board member of the National Book Critics Circle. He is also a contributing editor to Literary Hub.

Hope Wabuke is the author of The Leaving and Movement No.1: Trains. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Award in 2017, and has been published widely in various magazines. She is also an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and a contributing editor for The Root.