Critical Notes

AWP15 in Minneapolis, Awards Recap, Latest Member Reviews, and More

By Carmela Ciuraru

Your reviews seed this roundup; please send items, including new about your new publications and recent honors, to NBCCCritics@gmail.com. Make sure to send links that do not require a subscription or username and password.

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Join the NBCC at AWP15's featured reading (April 9th, 4:30 pm) with Jayne Anne Phillips, Lily King and Anthony Marra:

Revisiting the 2015 NBCC awards:

Toni Morrison on the power of book critics.

Video of the NBCC finalists' reading.

Video of the NBCC awards ceremony.

Rita Dove's homage to Toni Morrison.

Announcement of NBCC awards recipients.

Alexandra Schwartz on winning the Balakian award.

Phil Klay on winning the John Leonard Prize.

*Member reviews:

NBCC President Tom Beer on the latest memoirs in Newsday. 

NBCC board member Jane Ciabattari on NPR's Weekend Edition talking about poet Jill Alexander Essbaum's first novel, Hausfrau. Julia M. Klein's review of Hausfrau for the Chicago Tribune. Klein also reviews Barney Frank's political memoir for the Boston Globe.

Joan Gelfand on Carol Smallwood's poetry collection.

Chuck Twardy reviews Kazuo Ishiguro. So does Angie Jabine.

Grace Schulman on Marilyn Hacker in Kenyon Review.

Terry Hong reviews The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot in the Christian Science Monitor. 

NBCC board member David Biespiel in The Rumpus.

Jim Ruland reviews Barry Gifford in the Los Angeles Times.

Dan Cryer on The Last Word, by Hanif Kureishi.

NBCC board member Joanna Scutts reviews Jacob Silverman's “Terms of Service” and 'The Battle of Versailles,' by Robin Givhan.

NBCC board member Carmela Ciuraru on Find Me, by Laura van den Berg, in the New York Times.

Michael Magras on The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips.

David Duhr on Keija Parssinen's The Unraveling of Mercy Louis for the Dallas Morning News.

Michelle Newby reviews Crepuscule W/ Nellie by Joe Milazzo for The Collagist and Elizabeth Harris's Mayhem for Lone Star Literary Life.

2013 Balakian winner and new NBCC board member Katherine A. Powers reviews Elliott Ackerman's Green on Blue and John Boyne's A History of Loneliness.

Andrew Cleary on Jacob Silverman's Terms of Service in the Christian Science Monitor.

Robert Birnbaum interviews Anthony Doerr. 

Chris Barsanti on Richard Price's “The Whites” for PopMatters.

Larry Smith on Jane Hirshfield.

James Gibbons on Fred Moten.

Gerald Bartell on Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson, in the San Francisco Chronicle.