The Robert B. Silvers Foundation has announced the winners of the inaugural Silvers-Dudley Prizes for criticism and journalism. Judged by Hari Kunzru, Drenka Willen and Madeline Schwartz, the awardees include Becca Rothfeld, Merve Emre, Vinson Cunningham, Elaine Blair, and more.
Dorothy, A Publishing Project has shared the two books they will publish in fall 2022: A Horse at Night: On Writing by Amina Cain, and Some of Them Will Carry Me by Giada Scodellaro.
At Boston Review, Robin D. G. Kelley and Bongani Madondo discuss Greg Tate’s life and work, and his writings on jazz in particular. As Madondo puts it: “He was a foundational figure of Hip Hop scholarship, no two ways about it. But our culture’s either-or single dimensionality (buttressed with this thing called ‘specialization,’ even in our avowed multi-disciplinary age) continues to ‘shade’ over Greg’s most intellectually cohesive music writing: jazz criticism.”
At Uncanny magazine, The Body Scout author Lincoln Michel writes about the absence of bodies in recent cyperpunk science-fiction and from contemporary fiction in general—what the novelist Brandon Taylor has described as “character vapor.” Michel calls for a return to physicality amid the climate crisis and Big Tech’s apparent omnipotence: “In 2021, our corporate overlords’ profits depend on erasing our physicality to sell us VR office meetings, filtered and photoshopped beauty standards, and surveillance marketing that reduces us to data points.”
Lit Hub has published their list of 196 “Most Anticipated” books forthcoming in the new year.