Members and friends, please join us on Thursday, January 15, at 7 p.m. Eastern/4 p.m. Pacific for a special conversation about poetry in translation with Arthur Sze, the 25th Poet Laureate of the United States, led by Mandana Chaffa, Vice President of the Barrios Book in Translation Prize. Arthur Sze has authored twelve collections of poetry, most recently Into the Hush (2025); The Glass Constellation (2021), winner of the 2024 National Book Foundation Science + Literature Prize; and Sight Lines (2019), winner of the National Book Award. Further honors include the Bollingen Prize for Lifetime Achievement for American Poetry, a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the Shelley Memorial Award. Sze lives with his wife, the poet Carol Moldaw, in Santa Fe, where he served as the city’s first poet laureate. This is a free event; you can pre-register here.
Member Reviews/Essays
Costa Beavin Pappas wrote about Eric Lichtblau’s American Reich for the Los Angeles Times.
In his essay “Cruising with Boyd McDonald” for The Gay & Lesbian Review, Michael Quinn reflects on how the legendary pornographer’s filthy film criticism shaped his understanding of gay desire.
NBCC board member Tobias Carroll reviewed Jonathan Lethem’s A Different Kind of Tensionfor the Portland Press Herald; Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine for Zona Motel; Mark Z. Danielewski’s Tom’s Crossing for Reactor; and John Darnielle’s This Year for Kismet.
Jake Casella Brookins reviewed five titles for the Ancillary Review of Books: North Sun, Audition, Sunbirth, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, and The Heist of Hollow London. His top book selections also appeared in Strange Horizons‘ Year in Review.
NBCC board member Rebecca Morgan Frank previewed 2026 in Poetry for Literary Hub‘s Anticipated Poetry of 2026.
Olga Zilberbourg reviewed Andrew Lam’s Stories From the Edge of the Sea for The Common, and The Disappearing Act, written by Maria Stepanova and translated from the Russian by Sasha Dugdale, for On the Seawall.
Heller McAlpin reviewed Val McDermid’s Winter for The Christian Science Monitor.
Publishers Weekly staffers including NBCC members Meg Lemke and David Varno chose “picks” for the first quarter of 2026.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about Queen, written by Birgitta Trotzig and translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel, for On the Seawall.
Kristen Martin reviewed Kathleen Boland’s Scavengers for The Washington Post and Elliot Williams’ Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York’s Explosive ‘80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation for Columbia Magazine.
Marcie Geffner reviewed Fit Into Me: A Novel, A Memoir by Molly Gaudry for Washington Independent Review of Books.
Genanne Walsh reviewed Laura Poppick’s Strata: Stories From Deep Time for the Portland Press Herald – Maine Sunday Telegram.
Jennifer Barber reviewed Turned Earth by Brad Richard and Hindsight by Rosanna Warren for On the Seawall.
Member Interviews
Sullivan Summer interviewed Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Trymaine Lee about his book A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America for the New Books Network.
NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Jane Ciabattari’s conversation with Colombian-born author Laura Restrepo was translated by Caro De Robertis, translator of Song of Ancient Lovers, a timely and timeless retelling of the story of the Queen of Sheba, set in refugee camps in Yemen and Somalia.
Elaine Szewczyk profiled Tayari Jones for Publishers Weekly.
Zachary Fletcher interviewed Jill Freidberg, editor of Limitless: Stories from the City that Shaped Seattle, and Alli Frank and Asha Youmans, authors of Run For Your Life, Callie Kingman, for The Seattle Times.
For the podcast A Meal of Thorns, Jake Casella Brookins was joined in conversation by critic and reviews editor Dan Hartland to talk about the year in speculative fiction.
Britta Stromeyer interviewed Tatiana ȚÎbuleac for On the Seawall about her book The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes.
Member News
Parul Kapur’s debut novel, Inside the Mirror, about twin sister artists in midcentury India, won the 2025 Pattis Family Foundation Creative Arts Book Award. The $25,000 prize recognizes books centering creativity and art. Parul will be writer in residence at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in April as part of the award.
Brink, which is edited by NBCC member Hannah Bonner, is officially open for The Brink Literary Award for Hybrid Writing. The winner will receive $1,000, publication in the journal, and 4 copies of the issue in which their work appears. Diana Khoi Nguyen is the judge for this year’s contest. Submissions are open through February 28 and more information about submitting can be found here.
“There’s Nothing Like Living in a Bottle” by Thomas Hawk is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.