Members and friends, we hope you’re doing well! Our members have been busy this past week with reviews of books by authors including Namwali Serpell, Mandy-Suzanne Wong, Jeanette Winterson, James Lee Burke, and Patti Smith, and interviews with writers such as Matt Dinniman, Nicola Griffith, and Cristina Rivera Garza. Take care, and thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Omari Weekes reviewed Namwali Serpell’s On Morrison for Bookforum.
NBCC Vice President/Awards Iris Jamahl Dunkle writes about the forgotten and often dismissed work of Laura Riding Jackson in her latest post on her Substack newsletter, Finding Lost Voices.
Lori O’Dea reviewed The Worst Thing of All Is the Light, written by José Luis Serrano and translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel, for American Book Review.
McKenzie Watson-Fore reviewed Anna Rollins’s debut memoir, Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl, for The Christian Century.
Barbara J. King reviewed Mandy-Suzanne Wong’s collection of essays about invertebrate lives, Daughter of Mother-of-Pearl, for Science magazine.
Nicole Schrag reviewed Supersaurio, written by Meryem El Mehdati and translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches, for Full Stop and One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson for Washington Independent Review of Books.
Adam M. Rosen reviewed Chelsea Sutton’s Krackle’s Last Movie for Heavy Feather Review.
David Starkey reviewed The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph J. Ellis for the California Review of Books.
Kai Maristed reviewed the play The Moderate, written by Ken Urban and directed by Jared Mezzocchi, for The Arts Fuse.
Nell Beram reviewed The Quiet Mother, written by Arnaldur Indriðason and translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton, for Shelf Awareness.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about White Nights, written by Urszula Honek and translated from the Polish by Kate Webster, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Clea Simon reviewed James Lee Burke’s The Hadacol Boogie for The Arts Fuse.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Andromeda Romano-Lax’s What Boys Learn and Patti Smith’s Bread of Angelsfor BookTrib.
Nicholas Birns reviewed Michael D. C. Drout’s The Tower and the Ruin for the Journal of Tolkien Research.
Jay Gabler reviewed Robert Jobson’s The Windsor Legacy for The Tangential and wrote a column revisiting a 1995 bodice-ripper set on the churning waters of Lake Superior for the Duluth News Tribune.
Member Interviews
Zachary Fletcher interviewed Clyde W. Ford about A High Price for Freedom: Raising Hidden Voices from the African American Past and Matt Dinniman about Operation Bounce House for The Seattle Times.
Sullivan Summer interviewed professor, author, and Director of the UCLA Biocritical Studies Lab Dr. Terence Keel about his book, The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence for the New Books Network.
Eric Olson profiled Nicola Griffith for The Seattle Times.
Jason Berry interviewed Alma Guillermoprieto for the National Catholic Reporter.
NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Jane Ciabattari’s Literary Hub conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author/translator/professor (and NBCC Criticism Award finalist) Cristina Rivera Garza covers the excavations involved in writing her new book, Autobiography of Cotton, and the powerful motivation: “We turn to the past when the present is unbearable. We turn to the past, dashing through the dark, carrying questions that flare like messages set on fire.”
For their Book Cougars podcast, NBCC member Chris Wolak and Emily Fine spoke with Sharon M. Harris about her new biography, Her Life in Ink: Elizabeth Jordan, Journalist, Editor, and Mystery Author.
Member News
Washington Post book critic Ron Charles was laid off on Feb. 4. He now writes about books, authors and literary culture on Substack.
Sullivan Summer is the writer, co-creator/producer, and co-host of the new podcast Adoption Pop!, where a podcast journalist, a filmmaker, and a cultural critic burst pop culture’s favorite adoption tropes. Each episode, the hosts dive into movies, TV, and reality shows—from prestige dramas to the classics—to ask what these stories are saying, and not saying, about adoption. And they get real about representation: how the world sees adopted people, and how they see themselves. It is available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
NBCC member Lee Rossi was interviewed by David Garyan in L’Adige magazine about his background and career in poetry for the California Poets Interview Series.
Sean Carlson’s poem “Easter Week in Valencia” was published in the latest issue of Image Journal.
NBCC member Kristin Dykstra was interviewed by Heather Green for the January 2026 issue of Asymptote, discussing poetry, literary translation, photography, and attention to place.
Connie Post’s next full-length book of poetry, Someday This Promise, will be published by New York Quarterly Books In January 2027.
Hollay Ghadery’s new novel, The Unravelling of Ou, was reviewed by Olivia Zimberoff in the Independent Book Review.
“Amsterdam” by michael kogan is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.