Genre: Fiction
Book Awards
In the Shadow of a Homeplace: One Writer’s Life in Mississippi
A Nigerian professor and fiction writer describes how a new place like Starkville, Mississippi, becomes a home and how the color, texture, and form of her surroundings make their way into her storytelling.
Radcliffe Institute Fellowships
Housatonic Book Awards
Small Press Points: Blair
Based in North Carolina, the independent publisher Blair champions local narratives, overlooked stories, and perspectives outside of traditional publishing. The press publishes ten to twelve books yearly in poetry, nonfiction, and fiction.
Isabel Allende: My Name Is Emilia del Valle
At this Dominican University of California event, Isabel Allende talks about her latest novel, My Name Is Emilia del Valle (Ballantine Books, 2025), the importance of women characters who don’t compromise, and the class structure of Chile which informed her writing in a conversation with Matthew Félix.
Ten Questions for Shoshana von Blanckensee
“If you put the hours in, the work will work itself out.” —Shoshana von Blanckensee, author of Girls Girls Girls
Keiichiro Hirano: The Question of Selfhood
At this Japanese Literature Night event hosted by the Japan Society, Keiichiro Hirano delivers his keynote speech titled “The Question of Selfhood” in which he shares how his upbringing in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka during the eighties and nineties inspired his interest in literature and how he attempts to tackle questions of the individual’s place in modernity through his novels.
Clam Down
Can a typo inspire a story? In the opening paragraph of Anelise Chen’s memoir, Clam Down: A Metamorphosis (One World, 2025), the narrator recalls a text message from her mother wherein the phrase “calm down” has been transformed, whether through a typo or autocorrect, into “clam down.” This cryptic mistake becomes the premise for a story of metamorphosis and connections, withdrawal and closing up, and family history, as Chen weaves in mollusk science and explores a long-ago period of her father’s retreat from the family. Spend some time observing words and language you see in your daily life from text messages, signage, advertisements, and labels. Select a phrase that has the potential to be interpreted in an open way and leads you into writing a new story, perhaps one that incorporates science, the natural world, and elements of the fantastic.



