Posts Tagged: National Book Award

Complicating Unhelpful Binaries: Talking with Deesha Philyaw

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Deesha Philyaw discusses her debut story collection, THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES.

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We Have to Trust Our Punch: A Conversation with Kevin Young

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Kevin Young discusses Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, America’s relationship to hoaxes, and what we can learn from that relationship.

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A Deeply Human Act: Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

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What is so extraordinary about this collection is its lyricism, its humanity, and its urgency.

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The Rumpus Interview with Bonnie Jo Campbell

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Bonnie Jo Campbell discusses her collection Mothers, Tell Your Daughters, the natural world as a character, and finding writing from the male point of view easier.

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Touring Trump’s America on Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad

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Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad won the National Book Award on Wednesday night. In his acceptance speech he told us, “We’re happy in here; outside is the blasted hellhole wasteland of Trumpland. Be kind to everybody. Make art and fight the power.” Not only was this apt for the evening, but it also describes the […]

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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #57: Jesse Ball

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It can be hard to describe a Jesse Ball novel. They’re willfully strange, dark and puzzling, but the pieces aren’t always designed to fit together. Instead, each of his books, which are always written in the first person, have a tendency to take the reader into the heads of the lead characters, which is often […]

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War Narratives #6: The Rumpus Interview with Phil Klay

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When you’re writing fiction, you can follow your own ignorance. You can write something and realize how flawed you are.

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Learning to Write, One Sentence at a Time

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At the Guardian, Angela Chen profiles poet Robin Coste Lewis, who was only permitted to write one sentence a day after sustaining severe brain damage: “I would sit there for eight hours a day thinking of one line and it became delicious,” Lewis says. “It was this huge epiphany—‘Oh, this is what poetry is! You can […]

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Why Some Voices Are “Stronger” than Others in YA Lit

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At the School Library Journal, Kelly Jensen examines gender norms and double standards in YA fiction, questioning which female protagonists we refer to as “strong”—and why do not refer to male voices as such: When women take risks in their writing, when they choose to write female-driven narratives with take-no-bull girls who may not care at […]

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The Rumpus Interview with Lauren Groff

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Lauren Groff talks about her new novel, Fates and Furies, the life of creative people and those who love them, and why she’s grateful to anyone who reads books.

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Judging the Judges

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This year’s judges of the National Book Award seem to agree that women’s nonfiction writing is abundant and prize-worthy. The 2015 nonfiction longlist includes seven female-authored books, out of 10, the largest percentage of female nominees in the prize’s history. The longlist also contains two books by people of color, compared to last year’s one. […]

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Literary Cooties

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A recent study by author Nicola Griffith reveals that books written about men were more likely to win major literary prizes over the last fifteen years than books written about women. During this timeframe, 12 Man Booker Prize winners and 10 National Book Award winners were primarily about men or boys. Griffith writes: It’s hard to escape the conclusion that, when […]

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The Rumpus Interview with Elliot Ackerman

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Elliot Ackerman discusses his debut novel Green on Blue, fighting with the Marine Corps in the Second Battle of Fallujah, and being labeled as a journalist .

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Final Tour

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Phil Klay’s just won the National Book Award, and he talks with Rumpus Interviews Editor Emeritus Rebecca Rubenstein about the repercussions. They also hit on the burden of multiple voices, “entry points”, and what qualifies you to tell a true war story: Authenticity is a tricky thing. I think perhaps we’re too willing to assume authenticity just […]

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A Loss of Translation

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The mismatch between quality and recognition in the world of translated fiction and nonfiction is surely more extreme than in any category of literature, and while this category has a growing number of great advocates, it deserves to have them at the highest level. At Melville House, Mark Krotov argues that the National Book Award […]

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Weekend Rumpus Roundup

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This weekend, Heather Partington reviews Fridays at Enrico’s, Don Carpenter’s posthumous novel about novelists, and Inside Madeleine, a collection of stories by Paula Bomer that takes an unblinking look at femininity. While the former will strike a familiar chord for many Rumpus readers—Carpenter’s book follows a married couple pursuing literary success in the Beat world […]

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National Book Award Finalists Announced

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Here is the complete list of finalists for the National Book Award in the fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young adult categories. The finalists include Rumpus interviewee Rachel Kushner and Rumpus book club participant George Saunders—plus one of the judges in the young adult category is our Letters for Kids editor Cecil Castellucci! Congratulations to all the brave and hardworking […]

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William Vollmann: Respected Author and…Terrorism Suspect?

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William Vollmann is the author of dozens of novels, short stories, essays, and articles, and the recipient of a multitude of nominations, grants, and prizes, including the National Book Award. He is also, according to a piece he wrote for the latest issue of Harper’s, the subject of a 785-page FBI file related to suspicions that […]

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The Contenders

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The National Book Award Foundation recently launched an online exhibition devoted to the 373 books that were NBA Fiction Finalists between 1950 and 2011. Now a permanent part of the foundation’s website, the digital archive will expand each year as new nominees are announced.

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Poetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears

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Congratulations to Keith Waldrop, winner of the National Book Award in Poetry. Here’s their interview with Waldrop. Mark Scroggins uses the Barrett Watten reading I mentioned last week as a jumping off point for an interesting discussion of, as he puts it, “the relationship of personal formation, as detailed & explored in autobiography, and literary […]

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Poetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears

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Here’s some interesting reading from the world of poetry this week. Michael Schaub at HTMLGIANT picks up where the Poetry Foundation left off a little while ago about martinis and poets. You’ll like their entries. This is a little dated by internet standards, but it’s still worth looking at: Calvin Trillin versifies about the Roman […]

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