Members and friends, registration is now open for the NBCC virtual panel The Interview as Literary Criticism on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026, at 7 p.m. Eastern/4 p.m. Pacific! The panel is free but registration is required—you can register here. The panel will be a cross-genre discussion about the interview as a means for deepening the national literary conversation featuring five acclaimed critics discussing the elements of what makes a good interview, favorite interviews, overcoming difficulties, and the future of book criticism. The panel will feature Charlie Jane Anders, NBCC board member Mandana Chaffa, former NBCC President and current advisory board member Jane Ciabattari, Deborah D. Douglas, and Gary M. Kramer, and will be moderated by NBCC board member May-lee Chai.
Member Reviews/Essays
Erick Verran reviewed Paula Bohince’s A Violence for Rain Taxi and Douglas Kearney’s I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always for Pin.
Diane Scharper reviewed Edward Hopper: A Life by Louis Shadwick for the Washington Examiner.
Bill Thompson reviewed Geoffrey Plank’s Last Place in Europe and Franz de Waal’s Minds I’ve Met for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier.
Lanie Tankard reviewed the fifth book of Danish author Solvej Ballie’s On the Calculation of Volume, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell, for the November/December issue of World Literature Today.
Erik Gleibermann wrote “The Ancient Nutrients Sustaining Cali, Colombia,” about the city’s Afro-Colombian community, for World Literature Today.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Carol Goodman’s Our Marriage Is Murder for BookTrib.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about Behind the Gate, written by Amparo Dávila and translated from the Spanish by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson, for Southwest Review, and about Stationsby Louise Kennedy for The Boston Globe.
Julia M. Klein reviewed Sam Wasson’s Frank Capra for the Los Angeles Times.
Audrey Shipp reviewed the autobiographical hybrid memoir Groundbreaking: My Unmapped Path as an Academic, Mother, and Gardener by Clare Cooper Marcus and the memoir-in-essays Desire Lines by Kristen Millares Young for Hippocampus Magazine.
Amanda Holmes Duffy reviewed Otherwhere by Carolyn Forché for the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Marcie Geffner reviewed Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe by Emily Ogden for the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Hope Reese wrote about Lawrence Wright’s Redemptionfor The Boston Globe.
Nicole Schrag reviewed An American Girl: How a Billion-Dollar Doll and Its Unlikely Founder Changed Girlhood Forever by Amanda FitzSimons for The Wall Street Journal and Liberal Arts: A Novel by David McGlynn for The Common.
Claude Peck reviewed Lizzie Ehrenhalt’s Romantic Sensation: The Queer Lives of Leon A. Belmont, 1853–1927 for The Gay & Lesbian Review.
Member Interviews
Hannah Bonner interviewed Katie Bennett about her memoir She Was Wild Grass for BOMB.
Sullivan Summer interviewed Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Dr. Marcia Chatelain about her latest book, How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington, on the Additions to the Archive podcast.
Member News
NBCC Poetry Chair David Woo has a poem in the new issue of Copper Nickel.
McKenzie Watson-Fore is moderating a virtual book launch for Julia Cohen’s Freak Lip: Essays of the Unsaid (which she previously reviewed for Zona Motel) which will include an author panel with Chloé Caldwell and Lidia Yuknavitch. The event will take place online on Monday, Nov. 9, at 4:30 p.m Pacific/7:30 p.m Eastern. McKenzie is also teaching a three-hour course in book reviewing and literary criticism with Literary Liberation. The course will take place online on Saturday, Nov. 14, at noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern.
Joan Silverman’s newsletter promises a bit of respite from the news and information that assault us daily. Away From It All highlights “essays by leading writers on any and everything, but the news.” In the latest issue, Kelly McMasters leaves home—twice; Ira Sukrungruang finds solace in Maui; and Andrea A. Firth reveals a family secret.
Catherine Parnell’s short story “Night Sounds” appeared in Vox Populi.
NBCC board member May-lee Chai (My Hungry Ghosts: Essays & Incantations) will be in conversation with San Francisco Poet Laureate Genny Lim (History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island) for a virtual event sponsored by Eastwind Books of Berkeley on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026 at 3 p.m. Pacific/6 p.m. Eastern. Chai and Lim will be discussing writing in diaspora, ancestors, and the journeys that haunt them. The event is free and open to the public but please register in advance in order to receive the webinar link.
David Galef’s third story collection, Tradeoffs, was published by Cornerstone Press on Oct. 20, and was reviewed by Kirkus Reviews. David also co-edited an anthology, 20 Over 60, consisting of 20 stories by authors over 60, writing about that time of life, which was published by Regal House on Oct. 6, and was reviewed by Library Journal and The Wall Street Journal, and written about by the New York Post.
Seven poems by Hélène Cardona, including her new poem “The Dream of Horses and Flooded Land,” have been published in California Poets, Part XI, curated by David Garyan for LAdige. The issue also features an interview with Blas Falconer and a discussion with Victoria Chang.
Jim Ruland’s twisty, pulp take on the heist novel, Mightier Than the Sword, was published by Rare Bird in October.
“typewriter” by Amy Ross is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.