The 2022 National Book Awards were announced last night in New York. The winners include Tess Gunty in fiction, Imani Perry in nonfiction, John Keene in poetry, and Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell in translated literature.
Steven Ginsberg, a former Washington Post editor, has been named the executive editor of The Athletic. The sports media company, which is said to have more than one million paid subscribers, was purchased by the New York Times in January.
The socialist feminist magazine Lux has posted its advice column from issue five, with tips for political organizing from Combahee River Collective founding member Demita Frazier.
At Vulture, Sophie Vershbow reports from the strike by members of the HarperCollins Union. Vershbow writes, “It was thrilling to see HarperCollins employees saying the quiet parts out loud, as I recently left book publishing after nearly a decade due to so many of the things the HC Union is fighting to improve — low salary, long hours, limited opportunities for promotion.”
Jennifer Chong Schneider reviews the latest edition of Best American Essays, edited this year by Alexander Chee. “Chee, it seems, is trying to tell us that it’s lonely to be tokenized, but that it’s also a choice by editors to reserve ONE issue or ONE selection for a group of people. Straight white people took, had, so much for hundreds of years. The job of an editor is not a light task. A simple editorial choice closes or opens doors, for both writers and readers. Chee’s level of inclusion creates a depth of understanding that readers are owed in a time of headlines about trans-therapies, gender-based violence, institutional discrimination, disease, death, and debt.”
On Thursday, December 1st, the Strand bookstore in New York City is hosting Michael Imperioli (from The Sopranos and White Lotus) to discuss his debut novel The Perfume Burned His Eyes. The actor will be in conversation with Thurston Moore.