The National Book Critics Circle Award winners were announced last night. Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments won the prize for criticism, Morgan Parker’s Magical Negro won for poetry, and Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House won the John Leonard Prize. A ceremony that was originally scheduled for tonight at the New School will now be held in September due to COVID-19.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced the winners of this year’s prizes. Honorees include Valeria Luiselli, Wayne Koestenbaum, Alex Kotlowitz, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Mary Ruefle, among others.
Kate Elizabeth Russell talks to The Guardian about the line between fiction and memoir, being the “right kind” of victim, and her new novel, My Dark Vanessa.
Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker-winning Girl, Woman, Other is being turned into a TV series.
Deadspin has started publishing again under new editor in chief Jim Rich.
For Literary Hub, Na Zhong looks at the ways COVID-19 is affecting the Chinese publishing industry. Quarantines and paper shortages are hurting an industry that was already in decline due to government censorship.
At Longreads, Jane Ratcliffe talks to Lidia Yuknavitch about language, anger, and her recently published story collection, Verge. “The anger of women is an earth-shattering thing,” Yuknavitch said. “If we could find some forms of expression, it could serve change. But when it’s trapped into bitchiness or pissiness or just debate over whether women should be quiet and good and motherly, etc. — the energy dissipates and dies.”