The National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors is elected each year, with participants serving three-year terms. Contact information, full board member bios, and committee lists are below. Please see our Frequently Asked Questions page before contacting board members with NBCC-related questions.
ATTENTION PUBLISHERS: Please see guidelines and information on submitting titles.
Jane Ciabattari is a former NBCC president, a regular contributor to BBC Culture and The Literary Hub, and author of the story collection Stealing the Fire. Her book reviews and cultural criticism have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Guardian, NPR, Bookforum, Paris Review, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and Poets & Writers Magazine, among others. She is a member of the Writers Grotto, on advisory boards of The Story Prize, the Bay Area Book Festival, and Lit Camp, a Pushcart Prize contributing editor, and a co-founder of the Flash Fiction Collective, a San Francisco-based reading series. Her current term on the NBCC Board ends in 2023.
Richard Z. Santos is a writer and teacher in Austin, TX. His debut novel, Trust Me, is out now from Arte Público Press. His work has appeared in multiple venues, including Texas Monthly, Kirkus Reviews, The Rumpus, Cosmonauts Avenue, Nimrod, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and many more. He can be found at www.richardzsantos.com. His current term on the board ends in 2021.
Longtime All Things Considered commentator (1991-2006) Marion Winik is the host of The Weekly Reader radio show and podcast. She reviews books for Newsday, People, Kirkus Review and other venues. She is the author of First Comes Love, The Glen Rock Book of the Dead and seven other books. Her monthly column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has received the “Best Column” and “Best Humorist” awards from Baltimore Magazine, and her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun and many other publications. She is a professor in the MFA program at the University of Baltimore. More info at marionwinik.com. Her current term on the Board ends in 2022.
Gregg Barrios is a playwright, poet, and journalist. He is a 2013 USC Annenberg Getty Fellow, and serves on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle. He was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters this year. He is the 2015 Fall Visiting Writer at Our Lady of the Lake University. His work has appeared in Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, Film Quarterly, San Francisco Chronicle, and Andy Warhol’s Interview. He is a former book editor of the San Antonio Express-News. He has received a CTG-Mark Taper Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Grant, and a 2013 Artist Foundation Grant for his theater work. His play Ship of Fools about Texas writer Katherine Anne Porter premieres this year in San Antonio’s Overtime Theater. He is collaborating with actor and filmmaker James Franco on a book of his experimental work in poetry and film. His current term on the board ends in 2021.
Carlin Romano is critic-at-large of The Chronicle of Higher Education and Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Ursinus College. His current term on the NBCC board term ends in 2022.
Michael Schaub is a freelance journalist and a regular contributor to NPR, The Los Angeles Times, and Men’s Journal. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, and other publications. He lives in Austin, Texas. His current term on the NBCC board ends in 2022.
Jacob M. Appel teaches writing and bioethics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, where he serves as Director of Ethics Education in Psychiatry. He is the author of fifteen volumes of fiction, two non-fiction books and a poetry collection. In his spare time, he is an emergency room physician. More at: www.jacobmappel.com. His current term on the NBCC Board ends in 2023.
Colette Bancroft has been the book editor at the Tampa Bay Times since 2007 and has received several journalism awards for her reviews and articles. She also directs the annual Times Festival of Reading, which presents 40 to 50 authors to 5,000 attendees. She is the editor of and a contributor to the short story anthology Tampa Bay Noir (Akashic 2020). Her current term on the NBCC Board ends in 2023.
Lori Feathers is a freelance book critic who lives in Dallas, Texas. Her reviews and features are published in several online and print publications including The Los Angeles Review of Books, Words Without Borders, The Rumpus, Full Stop, World Literature Today, and Rain Taxi. She is a fiction judge for the Best Translated Book Award, and is a co-owner and the book buyer at Interabang Books in Dallas. Her current term on the board ends in 2023.