Friends, we hope you’re doing well! This past week, our members have been busy with reviews of books by authors including Camila Kerwin, Kate Atkinson, Ari Emanuel, Elvira Navarro, and Barbara Kingsolver, and interviews with writers Kathy Anderson, Kevin Brown, and Tom Overton. Take care, and thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
DW McKinney reviewed Camila Kerwin’s debut graphic narrative, Soft Targets: Guns in America and the Kids Caught in the Crossfire, for Hippocampus Magazine.
NBCC board member Heather Scott Partington reviewed Robert Moor’s In Trees and Chloe Dalton’s Raising Hare for Punk Eek.
Beatrice Szymkowiak reviewed Carolina Ebeid’s Hide for Under a Warm Green Linden.
Cynthia-Marie Marmo O’Brien reviewed Shanda McManus’s Brother Epistles for America magazine
Sean Carlson’s essay “I Began a Sweet Tradition with My Children—Finding the Best Cinnamon-Rolls at Home and Abroad” was published in Travel + Leisure.
Former NBCC President Laurie Hertzel reviewed Kate Atkinson’s new World War II novel, Our Noble Selves, for The Boston Globe.
Julia M. Klein reviewed Ari Emanuel’s Roll the Calls for the Forward.
McKenzie Watson-Fore wrote about visiting the Focus on the Family headquarters in conjunction with the book launch event for Dr. Kristin Kobes du Mez’s Live Laugh Love for her Substack, Critic at Play.
Michael Gorra, a past winner of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing and a past finalist for the NBCC Award for Biography, reviewed Nancy Lemann’s The Oyster Diaries and two other books for The New York Review of Books.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman’s The Kings of Vegas for BookTrib.
For the Los Angeles Review of Books, Cory Oldweiler wrote about Blood Is Dripping Onto the Courtyard, written by Elvira Navarro and translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney.
Former NBCC board member Steven G. Kellman, a past winner of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, reviewed Ben Fountain’s Rasputin Swims the Potomac in the current print edition of Rain Taxi.
Bruce Krajewski reviewed Kojin Karatani’s The End of Modern Literature for the Ancillary Review of Books and Anna Arno’s Paul Celan: A Life for Critical Inquiry.
Jack Sullivan, who was inducted into the NBCC by Nona Balakian, reviewed Anthony Tommasini’s book on the legendary Black contralto Marian Anderson, Voice of a Century, for Classical Voice North America.
Chris Barsanti reviewed Barbara Kingsolver’s Partita and Jill Lepore’s The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State for PopMatters and wrote “A Fragmentary History of the U.S. Comic Books Trade” for the fall 2026 issue of Rain Taxi Review of Books.
Priscilla Gilman reviewed Ply by Hernan Diaz for The Boston Globe.
Member Interviews
Anne Charles interviewed short story writer and novelist Kathy Anderson about libraries and her recently released story collection, Vamoose, on the All Things LGBTQ Interview Show.
Sullivan Summer interviewed NBCC member Kevin Brown about his criticism as an art form and his personal practice in the Black Lit Crit newsletter.
Andrew Holter interviewed Tom Overton about his new biography of John Berger for Protean Magazine.
Member News
John Skoyles’ eighth book of poems, That’s Where You Come In, is now available from Carnegie Mellon University Press. His novel, All the Question Marks, has just been published by Unbound Edition Press.
Rochelle Spencer is a host of Relax and Write, a podcast focusing on writing and wellness. The podcast starts off with a short interview with a writer, artist, or wellness expert, and ends with 30 minutes of communal writing time. Interested readers can send an email to rochelle@thesteamcollective.com for Zoom information.
Michael Gorra, a past winner of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing and a past finalist for the NBCC Award for Biography, was interviewed by The Chronicle of Higher Education about his new book, The Storytellers: Reading the Masterpieces of Nineteenth-Century Short Fiction, just out from the University of Chicago Press.
Sean Carlson’s poem “While we can” was published in North American Review.
Mantis published Yana Kane’s translation of a poem titled “fill your palms with snow and with breath…” by Andrei Kostinsky in its Issue # 24. World Poetry Review and The Los Angeles Review also published her translations of poems by Alena Maksakowa.
Susan Shapiro will be moderating an in-person New York City book panel with editors and agents at P&T Knitwear on Oct. 19 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, sponsored by PEN America, about books that are launched with a short piece in a newspaper, magazine, or literary journal. The event is open to the public, and you can buy tickets here.
Abby Manzella has been named a Fiction Fellow by Poets & Writers to work on publicity for her forthcoming short story collection, Ripples into the Wild, set for publication by Cornerstone Press next February.
Grace Schulman’s poems “Cape Ann,” “Invitation,” and “Yew” appeared in Commonweal, and her poem “Because” appears in The Pushcart Book of Twenty-First Century Poems and Prose. Her poem ”Thebes, Revisited” is in The Pushcart Prize 50; and another poem, “Gods in New York,” appeared in Lily Poetry Review.
Joan Silverman’s newsletter, Away From It All: Essays From Near + Far, highlights “essays by leading writers on any and everything, but the news.” Recent issues feature work by Sven Birkerts, Beth Ann Fennelly, Nicole Walker, and Andre Dubus III. For more information, visit awayfromitall.substack.com.
“Sotheran’s” by Shou-Hui Wang is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.