National Book Critics Circle – Honoring outstanding writing and fostering a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature since 1974

Honoring outstanding writing and fostering a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature since 1974

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Mark Athitakis is journalist and critic whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, Humanities, and numerous other publications. He is the author of The New Midwest (Belt Publishing), a critical survey of contemporary fiction from the region. He lives in Phoenix. His current term on the board ends in 2020.

Anjali Enjeti’s articles, essays, and book reviews have appeared in Al Jazeera, The Paris Review, The Georgia Review, The Atlantic, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and elsewhere. She teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA program at Reinhardt University, lives near Atlanta, and can be found on Twitter @anjalienjeti. Her current term on the board ends in 2020.

Lori Feathers is a freelance book critic who lives in Dallas, Texas. Her reviews and features are published in several online and print publications including The Los Angeles Review of Books, Words Without Borders, The Rumpus, Full Stop, World Literature Today, and Rain Taxi. She is a fiction judge for the Best Translated Book Award, and is a co-owner and the book buyer at Interabang Books in Dallas. Her current term on the board ends in 2020.

Mary Ann Gwinn is a regular contributor to the Seattle Times’ Weekly Lit Life Column and reviews for Booklist, Newsday and other publications. She won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the Exxon Valdez disaster and was one of three jurors for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. She’s on Twitter at @gwinnma. Her term on the NBCC board ends in 2020.

Tess Taylor’s chapbook of poems, The Misremembered World, was selected by Eavan Boland and published by the Poetry Society of America. Her poetry and nonfiction have since appeared in The Atlantic, Boston Review, Harvard Review, The Times Literary Supplement, and The New Yorker. The San Francisco Chronicle called her first book,The Forage House, “stunning” and it was a finalist for the Believer Poetry Award. Her second book, Work and Days, was named one of the year’s 10 best books of poetry by the New York Times. Tess is on air poetry reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered, and is is currently the Distinguished Fulbright in residence at the Seamus Heaney Poetry Centre of Queens University Belfast. Her term on the NBCC board ends in 2020.

Jessica Loudis is an editor and writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, and many other fine literary outlets. She has been an editor at Bookforum, Al Jazeera, and Conjunctions, and was the founding editor of the book review website Idiom. Her NBCC term ends in 2020.

John McWhorter teaches linguistics, philosophy and music history at Columbia University. He writes for Time, CNN, the Atlantic and various publications on language and on race issues, and is the author of Words on the Move, Doing Our Own Thing, Losing the Race, The Language Hoax, The Power of Babel, and other books. He has authored four audiovisual sets on language for the Teaching Company and spoken at TED twice. He also does Slate’s language podcast Lexicon Valley. His current term on the Board ends in 2020.

Walton Muyumba is a writer and critic. His essays and reviews have appeared in Oxford American, The Crisis, NPR Books, The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. He’s the author of The Shadow and the Act: Black Intellectual Practice, Jazz Improvisation, and Philosophical Pragmatism (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2009). He is an associate professor of American and African Diaspora literature in the English Department at Indiana University-Bloomington. His term on the NBCC board ends in 2020.

Victoria Chang’s fourth book of poems, Barbie Chang, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2017. The Boss (McSweeney’s) won The PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award. Other books are Salvinia Molesta and Circle. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2017, along with the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award. She is a contributing editor of Copper Nickel and a poetry editor at Tupelo Quarterly. She teaches at Antioch University’s MFA program in Los Angeles. You can find her at www.victoriachangpoet.com. Her current term on the board ends in 2021.

Charles Finch is the author of several bestselling novels, including The Last Enchantments and The Woman in the Water. He is a regular critic for the New York Times, Slate, USA Today, and the Washington Post, and received the 2017 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle. He lives in Los Angeles. His current term on the NBCC board ends in 2021.

Ismail Muhammad is a writer and critic based in Oakland, California, where he’s a staff writer for the Millions, contributing editor at ZYZZYVA Literary Magazine, and Ph.D. candidate in English at U.C. Berkeley. His writing has appeared in Slate, the Paris Review, the New Republic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. You can and find him on Twitter @trapmotives. His current term on the board ends in 2021.

Katherine A. Powers is a freelance critic and the recipient of the 2013 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. She is the editor of “Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J.F. Powers, 1942-1963” (FSG, 2013). Her term on the NBCC board ends in 2021.

Kerri Arsenault is the Book Review Editor at Orion magazine, a freelance book critic, and Contributing Editor at Lithub. Arsenault received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and studied in Malmö University’s Communication for Development master’s program. She is a member of PEN America, Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, and Writers Rebel NYC. Her book, Mill Town; reckoning with what remains, will be published 9/1/2020 from St. Martin’s Press.

Gregg Barrios is a playwright, poet, and journalist. He is a 2013 USC Annenberg Getty Fellow, and serves on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle. He was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters this year. He is the 2015 Fall Visiting Writer at Our Lady of the Lake University. His work has appeared in Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, Film Quarterly, San Francisco Chronicle, and Andy Warhol’s Interview. He is a former book editor of the San Antonio Express-News. He has received a CTG-Mark Taper Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Grant, and a 2013 Artist Foundation Grant for his theater work. His play Ship of Fools about Texas writer Katherine Anne Porter premieres this year in San Antonio’s Overtime Theater. He is collaborating with actor and filmmaker James Franco on a book of his experimental work in poetry and film. His current term on the board ends in 2021.

Elizabeth Taylor, co-editor of The National Book Review and Literary Editor at Large of the Chicago Tribune, has served as President of the NBCC. The co-author of “American Pharaoh,” she edited both the Books and Sunday Magazine sections of the Chicago Tribune, and was a national correspondent for Time magazine, based in New York and then Chicago. Her term on the NBCC board ends in 2021.

Kate Tuttle is a freelance writer who contributes regularly to the Boston Globe, for whom she writes a weekly column. Her reviews and essays have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, New York Times, Salon, and Dame magazine. She can be found on twitter at @katekilla. Her term on the NBCC board ends in 2021.

Laurie Hertzel is the senior editor for books at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the author of a memoir, “News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist,” published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2010 and winner of a Minnesota Book Award. Her work has appeared in Tri-Quarterly, the Chicago Tribune, Minnesota Monthly magazine, and many other publications in the United States, Finland, and Australia. She has an MFA from Queens University in Charlotte, N.C. Hertzel teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Her current term on the NBCC board ends in 2022.

Carolyn Kellogg is a writer and critic. She is the former Books Editor of the Los Angeles Times, where she launched the slate of literary Critics at Large, and is an award-winning culture writer. Her work has been published widely. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama and can be found on Twitter @paperhaus.

Michael Schaub is a freelance journalist and a regular contributor to NPR, The Los Angeles Times, and Men’s Journal. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, and other publications. He lives in Austin, Texas. His current term on the NBCC board ends in 2022.

Madeleine Schwartz has written for The London Review of Books, The Guardian, Harper’s, Politico, Artforum, and The New York Review of Books, where she worked as an editor for several years. Her writing has been supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the International Women’s Media Foundation and the Fulbright Foundation.

Longtime All Things Considered commentator (1991-2006) Marion Winik is the host of The Weekly Reader radio show and podcast. She reviews books for Newsday, People, Kirkus Review and other venues. She is the author of First Comes Love, The Glen Rock Book of the Dead and seven other books. Her monthly column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has received the “Best Column” and “Best Humorist” awards from Baltimore Magazine, and her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun and many other publications. She is a professor in the MFA program at the University of Baltimore. More info at marionwinik.com. Her current term on the Board ends in 2022.

Carlin Romano is critic-at-large of The Chronicle of Higher Education and Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Ursinus College. His current term on the NBCC board term ends in 2022.

Hope Wabuke is the author of the chapbooks Movement No. 1: Trains and The Leaving. She is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation. A National Book Critics Circle board member, she is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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The 2019 NBCC finalists up close