In Technology We Trust: A Q&A With Victor LaValle
The author of four novels, most recently The Changeling, published by Spiegel & Grau in June, talks about the evolution of his new book, minimal dads, and writing a female character.
Genre: Fiction
The Poetic Outlook, Community-Supported Bookstores, and More
Forward Prizes announce shortlists; the next generation of queer writers; a history of Russian literature; and other news.
On Theft
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“The Portuguese have a word for haunting desire, for an imaginary, impossible, never-to-be experienced love: whoop-de-doo.” For the Hugo Literary Series, Téa Obreht, Eduardo C. Corral, and Quenton Baker share their poems and stories meditating on the theme of theft.
Subway Library, Griffin Poetry Prizes Announced, and More
Osama Alomar on writing about the Syrian war; cultural exchange versus appropriation in literature; Roxane Gay on writing her memoir about fatness and trauma; and other news.
Summer Reading
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Authors and independent bookstore owners Louise Erdrich, owner of Birchbark Books & Native Arts, and Emma Straub, owner of Books Are Magic, offer their recommendations for summer reading including books by Natalie Diaz, Sarah Gerard, and Lesley Nneka Arimah.
Medication and Creativity, Literary James Comey, and More
Naomi Alderman wins 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction; University of Wisconsin student sues poetry professor over bad grade; Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo has died; and other news.
Naomi Alderman Wins Baileys Prize
British writer Naomi Alderman has won the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction for her novel The Power (Viking). Alderman, who was announced the winner at an awards ceremony in London on Wednesday night, will receive £30,000 (approximately $39,000). The annual award is given for a book of fiction written by a woman from anywhere in the world and published in the previous year.
“We debated this wonderful shortlist for many hours but kept returning to Naomi Alderman’s brilliantly imagined dystopia—her big ideas and her fantastic imagination,” says Tessa Ross, who chaired the judging panel. The other judges for the 2017 prize were Sam Baker, Katie Derham, Aminatta Forna, and Sara Pascoe.
The shortlisted writers for the prize were Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀̀ for Stay With Me, Linda Grant for The Dark Circle, C. E. Morgan for The Sport of Kings, Gwendoline Riley for First Love, and Madeleine Thien for Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
The Power is Alderman’s fourth novel and is set in a dystopian future in which a genetic mutation allows women to electrocute people at will. Critics have likened the book, which Alderman dedicated to Margaret Atwood and her husband Graeme Gibson, to Atwood’s classic dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. Alderman, who is forty-two and lives in London, also writes video games and teaches at Bath Spa University.
Previous winners of the prize include Lisa McInerney, Ali Smith, Eimear McBride, Barbara Kingsolver, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Formerly known as the Orange Prize for Fiction, the prize was sponsored by the liqueur company Baileys starting with the 2014 prize. In January of this year it was announced that the prize will no longer be sponsored solely by Baileys but by a group of brands and businesses. The prize will now be called the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
To Kill a Mockingbird Graphic Novel, Waste Collector Creates Free Library, and More
HarperCollins announces changes in its leadership team; Muslim poets Kazim Ali and Kaveh Akbar talk poetry and family; Dorothy Parker’s best quips; and other news.
A Whale of a Tale
The life-size blue whale model displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City—nearly one hundred feet long and over twenty thousand pounds—recently had its annual cleaning. Write a short story with a scene in the museum during this two-day long process, perhaps describing some of the images taken of the huge animal model being vacuumed by the exhibition maintenance manager in a cherry picker. Does this scene act as a backdrop to the main drama of the story, or have metaphorical significance? Are your characters directly impacted or involved with the unusual cleaning process?
Brown Girls
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Fatimah Asghar, whose debut poetry collection, If They Come For Us, was published in June by One World, talks with director Sam Bailey about the motivations behind their web series Brown Girls, which the cocreators will be adapting for HBO.
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