Members and friends, we hope you’re doing well! Our members have been keeping busy with new reviews of books by authors including Robert Seethaler, Sophie Mackintosh, Andrew Krivak, Gwendoline Riley, and Elizabeth Strout, and interviews with writers such as Helen Benedict, Caroline Bicks, and R.A. Villanueva. Take care, and thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Kitty Kelley reviewed Ellen Carol DuBois’ Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Lifefor the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Hannah Bonner wrote about the avant-garde shorts program for the Museum of Moving Image’s film festival First Look for Reverse Shot.
Joan Frank reviewed Robert Seethaler’s The Last Movement for The Arts Fuse.
Publishers Weekly published its annual summer reads and staff picks, including NBCC member Meg Lemke’s picks for comics and former NBCC President David Varno’s picks for fiction.
Brian Tanguay reviewed The Man Who Stopped the Sultan: Gabriele Tadino & The Defence of Europe by Edoardo Albert for the California Review of Books.
Cory Oldweiler reviewed Sophie Mackintosh’s Permanencefor the Los Angeles Review of Books.
NBCC board member Tobias Carroll wrote about some April books in translation for Words Without Borders.
Martha Anne Toll wrote about Andrew Krivak’s Mule Boyfor the Pittsburgh Review of Books.
David Starkey reviewed Ghosts Behind Glass: Encountering Extinction in Museums by Dolly Jorgensen and Play This Book Loud: Noisy Essays by Joe Bonomo for the California Review of Books.
Robert Rubsam reviewed Gwendoline Riley’s Phantom Lives for Defector.
Terese Svoboda reviewed Helen Benedict’s The Soldier’s House for The Commons.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Alice Henderson’s Storm Warning for BookTrib.
Chris Barsanti reviewed Nova ’78, a documentary about the William S. Burroughs festival in 1978, for The Playlist.
Britta Stromeyer reviewed Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní Chuinn for World Literature Today.
Priscilla Gilman reviewed The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout for The Boston Globe.
Member Interviews
NBCC Advisory Board member and former NBCC President Jane Ciabattari’s Literary Hub conversation with Jayne Anne Phillips, whose novels include Lark and Termite, an NBCC Award finalist, and Machine Dreams, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize, explores her first nonfiction book, the memoir Small Town Girls. Jane also interviewed Helen Benedict about her new novel, The Soldier’s Home, which chronicles the legacy of the Iraq War in fiction, for Literary Hub.
Sullivan Summer interviewed Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies Dr. Danielle Bainbridge about her book, Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive, for the Additions to the Archive podcast.
NBCC board member Tobias Carroll interviewed Caroline Bicks about her book on Stephen King’s archives for the Portland Press Herald and Adrian Nathan West about translating two of Mario Vargas Llosa’s novels for Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
Tiffany Troy interviewed R.A. Villanueva about A Holy Dread for the University of Arizona Poetry Center blog.
Member News
Ben Yagoda’s novel Alias O. Henry has won the Philadelphia Athenaeum Literary Award for best book of the year written by a Philadelphian or about a Philadelphia subject.
Sullivan Summer has launched her own podcast, Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer, on the New Books Network, where she interviews Black authors writing Black history across genres. The podcast is available on all major platforms. A companion Substack also features (free) additional author interviews. See what’s new and forthcoming on Instagram too. Please like, follow, subscribe, and tell a friend!
Excerpts from Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay, the new biography from NBCC member Mary Lisa Gavenas, are running in the May issues of Literary Hub, Town & Country, and D Magazine. If members want a review copy, Mary Lisa’s publicist is Yuleza Negron, who can be contacted here.
Kristin Dykstra’s Dissonance, published by the University of Chicago Press, is a finalist for the Vermont Book Award in the poetry category.
Susan Shapiro will moderate a panel, How Three Pages Can Change Your Life: The Fastest Way to Land a Big Book Deal, on May 14, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Eastern, at Penguin Random House, featuring guests Judy Batalion, Tiffanie Drayton, Miya Lee, Aubrey Martinson, Kate McKean, and Danielle Perez. Tickets are available here.
“typewriter” by Amy Ross is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.