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“They make us more empathetic. They connect us to one another. They make people who are not like us more human.” Lisa Lucas, executive director of the National Book Foundation, shares her love of books and why reading them is so important for PBS NewsHour’s “Brief but Spectacular” series.
“Joy is an act of resistance.” At the sixty-seventh National Book Awards ceremony, Cave Canem founders Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady accept the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community for the organization known as a home for African American poets. This is the first time the award has been given to an organization.
At Yale University, Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his award-winning novel, The Sympathizer (Grove Press, 2015), and his latest book, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (Harvard University Press, 2016), which is a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award in nonfiction.
“Even when I’m writing for young people, I really try to get into the emotional side of who they are...” At the 2016 National Book Festival, Jacqueline Woodson discusses her novel Another Brooklyn (HarperCollins, 2016), which is shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award in fiction. Woodson is featured in “A Great Good” by Rigoberto González in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“I feel like I must muzzle myself, / I told my psychiatrist. / ‘So you feel dangerous?’ she said. / Yes. / ‘So you feel like a threat?’ / Yes. / Why was I so surprised to hear it?” At the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Solmaz Sharif reads from her debut poetry collection, Look (Graywolf Press, 2016), which is longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award in poetry. Sharif is joined by poets Rickey Laurentiis, Mariam Ghani, and Cathy Park Hong, who they read her work and their own, and join in a discussion.
At the Wheeler Centre, Hanya Yanagihara speaks about how her novel A Little Life (Doubleday, 2015) is “willfully out of step” with contemporary literature. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and National Book Award in 2015, the novel has been optioned by producer Scott Rudin as a limited series.
“Let it matter what we call a thing. / Let it be the exquisite face for at least 16 seconds. / Let me LOOK at you. / Let me look at you in a light that takes years to get here.” Listen to Solmaz Sharif read the titular poem from her debut poetry collection, Look (Graywolf Press, 2016), which is longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award in Poetry. Sharif is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“When you have left me / the sky drains of color / like the skin / of a tightening fist.” At a Writers With Drinks event in 2011, Monica Youn reads the poem “Ignatz Oasis” and others from her collection Ignatz (Four Way Books, 2010). Youn’s new collection, Blackacre (Graywolf Press, 2016), which is longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award, is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Colson Whitehead, whose new novel, The Underground Railroad (Doubleday, 2016), is featured in Page One of the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, speaks with Oprah Winfrey about the inspiration behind the book.
"It's sort of weird, being honored for the worst day of your life." Watch the trailer for the film adaptation of Ben Fountain's novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Ecco, 2012), a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The film is directed by Ang Lee with a screenplay by Jean-Christophe Castelli.
