Friends, we hope you’re enjoying the last days of summer! Our members have been keeping busy with reviews of books by authors including Elizabeth Strout, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Rachel Kushner, RuPaul, Roddy Doyle, Rae Armantrout, and more, and interviews with writers including Brontez Purnell and Darrin Bell. Take care, and as always, thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Hamilton Cain reviewed Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything for The Washington Post, Mariana Enriquez’s A Sunny Place for Shady People for The Minnesota Star Tribune, Jamie Quatro’s Two-Step Devil for Chapter 16, and Richard Flanagan’s Question 7for On the Seawall.
Danielle Amir Jackson reviewed Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lordefor The Atlantic.
Meena Venkataramanan created a literary map of South Asian America for Electric Literature. It maps out post-2010 fiction set across the American landscape—beyond just the two major coasts—by South Asian authors. It is illustrated by Nuri Bhuiyan.
NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Lauren LeBlanc reviewed Rachel Kusher’s Creation Lakefor the Los Angeles Times.
Britta Stromeyer reviewed What I Know About You by Éric Chacour, translated by Pablo Strauss, for On the Seawall.
For The Gay & Lesbian Review, Michael Quinn reviewed RuPaul’s The House of Hidden Meanings.
Olga Zilberbourg reviewed Mothersland by Shahzoda Samarqandi, translated by Shelley Fairweather-Vega, for On the Seawall.
NBCC President Heather Scott Partington reviewed Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen for the Los Angeles Times.
Martha Anne Toll reviewed Nell Irvin Painter’s I Just Keep Talkingfor NPR.
Former NBCC President Laurie Hertzel reviewed Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Roddy Doyle’s The Women Behind the Door for The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Diane Scharper reviewed Great-Uncle Harry: A Tale of War and Empire by Michael Palin for the Washington Examiner.
In The Brooklyn Rail, John Domini praised the new novel from two-time Booker finalist Chigozie Obioma, The Road to the Country.
Joan Silverman reviewed Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everythingfor the Portland Press Herald.
Ellen Prentiss Campbell wrote about connecting with her late brother through a box of old postcards in her latest Girl Writing column at the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Jeannine Burgdorf reviewed Thanks for This Riot by Janelle Bassett for The Masters Review.
Heller McAlpin reviewed Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything for The Christian Science Monitor.
Aiden Hunt reviewed Go Figureby Rae Armantrout for On the Seawall.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Scott Phillips’ The Devil Raises His Own and Alex Howard’s The Ghost Cat for BookTrib.
Lisa Russ Spaar reviewed Daywork by Jessica Fisher and Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips for On the Seawall.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about Damir Karakaš’ Celebration, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Member Interviews
Anne Charles interviewed Lamya H., the pseudonymous author of the memoir Hijab Butch Blues, on the Vermont cable access show All Things LGBTQ.
Grant Faulkner interviewed Brontez Purnell about his creative process and his memoir, Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, on the Write-minded podcast.
Adam M. Lowenstein interviewed Douglas Rushkoff about his book, Survival of the Richest, for his newsletter, Reframe Your Inbox.
Jay Gabler interviewed Darrin Bell, and members of the production team, for a Publishers Weekly feature on the creation of an audiobook adaptation of his graphic memoir The Talk.
Jake Casella Brookins talked to Dan Hartland, reviews editor at Strange Horizons, about Jeanette Winterson’s novel The Passion for the podcast A Meal of Thorns.
Member News
Nancy Naomi Carlson’s co-translation of Wendy Guerra’s Delicates (Seagull Books, 2023) with Esperanza Hope Snyder was recently longlisted for the National Translation Award in Poetry, administered by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). The NTA is the only national award for translated fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction that includes a rigorous examination of both the source text and its relation to the finished English work.
Rebecca Foust’s poem “The Silence” was published in On the Seawall.
“Seinäjoki” by Josep Maria Torra is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.