Critical Notes

Reviews and More From NBCC Members

By Michael Schaub

Members and friends, we’re so excited to announce the recipients of this year’s NBCC Emerging Critics Fellowships! The members of our 2023-2024 cohort are Jenessa Abrams, Hannah Bonner, Taylor Byas, Isabella Corletto, Noelle McManus, Michele Moses, Tomi Onabanjo, Gasira Timir, Olga Zolotareva, and Hantian Zhang. If you’re interested in helping to mentor these brilliant critics, we’d love to hear from you—email NBCC Vice President/Emerging Critics Fellowship at mschaubtx@gmail.com. We hope you’re all staying safe and cool, and as always, thanks for reading!

Member Reviews/Essays

For the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Books, Sylee Gore reviewed Lesley Harrison’s Kitchen Music, Brandon Shimoda’s Hydra Medusa, Richard Meier’s A Duration, and T. Liem’s Slows: Twice.

Priscilla Gilman reviewed Tom Lake by Ann Patchett for The Boston Globe.

Linda Hitchcock reviewed Naomi Hirahara’s Evergreenfor BookTrib.

Kristen Martin wrote about neuroscientific self-help books like The Body Keeps the Score for The Washington Post.

Diane Scharper reviewed Taking Things Hard: The Trials of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Robert Garnett for the Washington Examiner.

Former NBCC board member Marion Winik reviewed Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake, Rose Styron’s Beyond This Harbor, and Leila Slimani’s Watch Us Dancefor The Washington Post.

Julia M. Klein reviewed Joanne Intrator’s memoir, Summons to Berlin, for the Forward.

Hamilton Cain reviewed Lorrie Moore’s I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home for Harvard Review and Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake for Chapter 16.

Nell Beram reviewed four books for Shelf Awareness: bell hooks: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations; A Pocketful of Happiness by actor Richard E. Grant; The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge by Martin Edwards; and Too Late to Stop Now: More Rock ‘n’ Roll War Stories by Allan Jones.

Karl Wolff reviewed Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong for The Driftless Area Review.

Jenny Shank reviewed The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Jeffrey Mannix reviewed The Wolf Hunt by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen for his Murder Ink column in the Durango Telegraph, covering southwest Colorado and the vast Four Corners of the Southwest.

NBCC Vice President/Emerging Critics Fellowship and Online Michael Schaub reviewed Yepoka Yeebo’s Anansi’s Goldfor The Boston Globe.

Member Interviews

For their Across the Pond podcast, former NBCC board member Lori Feathers and co-host Sam Jordison talked to Irish author Colin Walsh about his Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize-shortlisted novel, Kala, a mystery that explores memory, belonging, and violence in a small town. 

Former NBCC board member Marion Winik interviewed Mary Kay Zuravleff about American Ending for the Baltimore Fishbowl.

Paul Wilner spoke with Edan Lepucki about her new novel, Time’s Mouth, for the Nob Hill Gazette.

NBCC Vice President/Events Jane Ciabattari talked with Jimin Han about filling narrative blank spaces with memory and imagination for Literary Hub.

For Tupelo Quarterly‘s August issue, Tiffany Troy spoke with India Lena González, danilo machado, Chike Nzerue, Karisma Price, Charles Rammelkamp, J. Hope Stein, Eric Stiefel, and Kelley Weber about their latest poetry collections and editors Rebecca Gayle Hoowell, Ashley M. Jones, Carol Alexander and Stephen Massimilla about their anthologies.

Former NBCC board member Mary Ann Gwinn interviewed Susan Casey, author of The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean, for Kirkus Reviews.

For their Book Cougars podcast, NBCC member Chris Wolak and Emily Fine spoke with Alli Frank and Asha Youmans about their new novel, The Better Half, and their writing partnership.

NBCC Vice President/Emerging Critics Fellowship and Online Michael Schaub interviewed Katherine Lin, author of You Can’t Stay Here Forever, for the Orange County Register.

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