Members and friends, we just wrapped up the 50th National Book Critics Circle Awards, which were announced at a ceremony in New York last week! If you missed it, you can watch the ceremony here, and the full list of winners is available on our website. Thanks so much to everyone who made this possible, and to all of you for your support!
The NBCC will be celebrating our 50th anniversary at AWP in Los Angeles! Join us on Friday, March 28, from 3:20–4:35 p.m. at the Petree Hall D, Los Angeles Convention Center, Level 1, where NBCC President Heather Scott Partington will be moderating a panel, NBCC Fiftieth Anniversary: All-Stars Breaking New Ground in Fiction, featuring authors Jonathan Escoffery, Jonathan Lethem, and Justin Torres. We’d love to see you there!
Several of our members are having events at AWP as well, and we encourage you to attend! Scroll down for a list of exciting panels you’ll definitely want to put on your schedule.
Member Reviews/Essays
NBCC lifetime member Fran Hawthorne reviewed Susan Meissner’s A Map to Paradisefor the New York Journal of Books.
Former NBCC President Tom Beer wrote about reading world literature for the International Issue of Kirkus Reviews.
Diane Scharper reviewed Percival Everett’s James, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Booker Prize, for America.
Genanne Walsh reviewed Amy Reading’s The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, for the Portland Press Herald-Maine Sunday Telegram.
Cory Oldweiler reviewed Colum McCann’s Twistfor The Minnesota Star Tribune and Nell Zink’s Sister Europefor The Boston Globe.
Erin Somers reviewed Marcy Dermansky’s Hot Airfor The New York Times Book Review.
The Spring 2025 edition of Rain Taxi Review of Books features Chris Barsanti’s review of the Library of America’s Joan Didion Collection and Alissa Wilkinson’s We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine; Jessica Gigot’s review of Paisley Rekdel’s Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens: On Reading and Writing Poetry Forensically; and NBCC Vice President/Treasurer Jacob M. Appel’s review of Corey Brettschneider’s The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Tod Lending’s The Umbrella Maker’s Son for BookTrib.
Robert Rubsam reviewed Yuko Tsushima’s Wildcat Dome, translated from the Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, for The Atlantic.
Hope Reese wrote about five books that might make you a better friend for The New York Times.
Nell Beram reviewed four books for Shelf Awareness: First Wife’s Shadow by Adele Parks; It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time by Bruce Vilanch; No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce by Haley Mlotek; and We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine by Alissa Wilkinson.
Yvonne C. Garrett reviewed Ali Smith’s Gliff for The Brooklyn Rail.
George Yatchisin reviewed Sameer Pandya’s Our Beautiful Boys for the California Review of Books.
Bill Thompson reviewed Outmaneuvered: America’s Tragic Encounter with Warfare from Vietnam to Afghanistan by James A. Warren for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier and A Capital Calamity: Escapades in Doomsday Land by Fred Kaplan for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Wayne Catan reviewed The River, written by Laura Vinogradova and translated from the Latvian by Kaija Straumanis, for Words Without Borders.
Julia M. Klein reviewed Blake Gopnik’s The Maverick’s Museum for The Washington Post.
Carr Harkrader reviewed Theory & Practiceby Michelle de Kretserfor the Washington Independent Review of Books and Ultramarine, written by Mariette Navarro and translated from the French by Eve Hill-Agnus, for the Chicago Review of Books.
Member Interviews
Nancy Naomi Carlson interviewed Katy Derbyshire about her latest translation from German, Robert Seethaler’s The Café With No Name, for On the Seawall.
Carr Harkrader interviewed Rob Christensen about his new book, Southern News, Southern Politics: How a Newspaper Defined a State for a Century, for IndyWeek.
Grant Faulkner interviewed Samina Ali on the Write-minded podcast about how writing played a central role in her recovery from a harrowing and devastating medical condition, which she wrote about in her memoir, Pieces You’ll Never Get Back.
Eric Liebetrau interviewed The Uncanny Muse author David Hajdu for Columbia Magazine.
Paul Wilner interviewed Jeanne Carsten about her new book, A Greek Tragedy: One Day, A Deadly Shipwreck and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis, for the Nob Hill Gazette.
NBCC Members at AWP
Olga Zilberbourg and Sasha Vasilyuk are among the co-organizers of an offsite AWP event, Born in the USSR: Diaspora Writers Against War, which will be held on Friday, March 28, from 6–8:30 p.m. Pacific at The Wende Museum in Culver City.
NBCC board member Marie Myung-Ok Lee will appear on a panel, On Tiger Balm & Fourth Kingdom: How Korean American Writers Have Built Community, at AWP on Saturday, March 29, from 1:45–3 p.m. Pacific in Concourse Hall 150 ABC, Level One, Los Angeles Convention Center, alongside fellow panelists Alexander Chee, Gene Kwak, and Joseph Han. The moderator is Hannah Bae.
Jenny Shank will appear on a panel, Making the Cut: What Judging Story Collection Contests Taught Us, at AWP on Friday, March 28, from 1:45–3 p.m Pacific in Room 404AB, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center, with Lori Ostlund, Hasanthika Sirisena, Michael Wang, and Toni Ann Johnson. Jenny will also be signing her story collection Mixed Company at the Texas Review Press booth (452 & 454) on March 27 from 11 a.m.–noon Pacific.
NBCC President Heather Scott Partington is moderating a panel, The Art of the Uncanny, at AWP on Thursday, March 27, from 12:10–1: 25 p.m. Pacific in Room 403A, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center, with panelists Anita Felicelli (a former NBCC board member), Carribean Fragoza, Rita Bullwinkel, and Kate Folk.
NBCC board member May-lee Chai will be on the AWP panel But It Wasn’t Written in English: Translated Literature in the CW Classroom on Saturday, March 29, from 12:10–1:25 p.m. Pacific in Room 501ABC, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center. The moderator is Bonnie Chau, and the other panelists are C Dylan Bassett and Jennifer Tseng.