Members and friends, if you’ll be in or around San Francisco this week, we’d love to invite you to an NBCC Litquake event curated by our former president, Jane Ciabattari! “The Author/Critic Dilemma” is co-sponsored by Page Street Writers and Cita Press, with Publishers Weekly as a media sponsor, and book sales by Green Apple. The panel will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 13, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Pacific, at Page Street Co-Writing at 297 Page St. in San Francisco. NBCC board member Iris Jamahl Dunkle will moderate the panel, which includes Jane, NBCC board members Jonathan Leal and May-lee Chai; NBCC lifetime member Greg Sarris, and Cita Press editorial director Jessi Haley. You can get tickets here—we hope to see you there!
Member Reviews/Essays
Former NBCC President Kate Tuttle responded to Bret Stephens’ op-ed about the National Book Awards in a piece titled “No, the National Book Awards are not ‘the literary world’s D.E.I. checklist’” for The Boston Globe.
Ron Slate reviewed they and Hafni Says, written by Helle Helle and translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken; Carousel by Sarah Minor; and Blood Money, written by Anna Seghers and translated from the German by Lucy Jones for On The Seawall.
NBCC Emerging Critics Co-Chair Craig Morgan Teicher wrote about seven poetry books to read this month for Literary Hub and about Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem for Alta.
Joan Frank reviewed Min Jin Lee’s American Hagwon for Alta.
Michael O’Donnell weighed in on the literacy debate with a review-essay on James Marriott’s The New Dark Ages: The Death of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Former NBCC President Laurie Hertzel reviewed Irish writer John Boyne’s new novel, The Weight of Angels, for The Irish Times. In this book, Boyne reimagines the life of Oscar Wilde.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about Chloe Aridjis’ The Shadow of the Object for On the Seawall and about Yiyun Li’s Music Against the Nightfor The Boston Globe.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Teresa Dovalpage’s The Novel Detective and Catherine Ostler’s The Renoir Girls for BookTrib.
Diane Scharper reviewed The Soldier’s House by Helen Benedict for America magazine.
Ricardo Santiago Soto reviewed Kaila Yu’s Fetishized for Raevue.
Julia M. Klein reviewed Blake J. Harris’ Emperor of Nothing for The Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Boxer wrote “Much Ado About Zip,” a comic-style review of the biography Here: Barnett Newman by Amy Newman, for Tablet.
Noelle McManus reviewed Ampersand Organ by heidi restrepo rhodes for On the Seawall.
Marcie Geffner wrote capsule reviews of The Trees by Percival Everett; London Station by David McCloskey; Gothic Tales by Mary Shelley, edited by Daniel Cook; The Tyranny of Thinness: Understanding and Resisting the Pressure to Be Skinny by Céline Leboeuf; and Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay by Mary Lisa Gavenas for her Substack, Mostly Books.
Valerie Duff-Strautmann reviewed Elizabeth Metzger’s The Going Is Forever and Andrea Werblin Reid’s To See Yourself as You Vanish for On the Seawall.
Member Interviews
Former NBCC President and current advisory board member Jane Ciabattari’s Literary Hub interview with Nina Schuyler about her new novel, Open the Floodgates, focuses on how she personified a river in craft and creative voice, and how she was influenced by Virginia Woolf. Jane also interviewed Lydia Millet, who explored how she wrote Fair Ones, a double novel of friendship, gun violence and grief.
Zachary Fletcher talked to Douglas Smith about The City Without Jews: Life and Death in Nazi Vienna for USA Today and to Geo Rutherford about Spooky Lakes for the Kitsap Sun.
Julia Lloyd George interviewed Emeline Atwood for her Substack, Piece of Work.
Deborah Copperud wrote a profile of Minneapolis novelist Kawai Strong Washburn and his latest book, The Names of the New World, for Racket.
For the podcast A Meal of Thorns, Jake Casella Brookins talked to critic Roseanna Pendlebury about the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Fiction Prize shortlist.
Member News
Greg Sarris, NBCC lifetime member, novelist, and filmmaker, was honored with a UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT) Advocate Award by the UCLA TFT. The TFT awards recognize individuals who have made a profound impact through service, practice or research to film, theater, and television. Others honored include Michelle Satter, the senior director of Sundance Institute’s Artist Program; production designer Rick Carter (Lincoln, Avatar); and a special honor for Carol Burnett, UCLA alumna and renowned film and theater actor.
John Skoyles was interviewed about his new novel, All the Question Marks, for The Adroit Journal.
NBCC board member May-lee Chai will be reading from her new book, My Hungry Ghosts: Essays & Incantations, and in conversation with memoirist Grace Hwang Lynch on Sunday, Oct. 18, at 2 p.m. Pacific at On Waverly bookstore in San Francisco’s Chinatown. This event is free and open to the public, and you can register here.
Seán Carlson’s essay “Painting the Last Photograph” for the New England Review received a Gold Prize in the 2025-2026 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.
“Green Apple Books” by Steve Rhodes is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.