The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, first awarded in 2006, was created to honor the best debut fiction of the year. The winner receives a $15,000 cash prize and each shortlisted author receives $1,000. Previous winners include Tommy Orange Read more >
The first trailer for season 3 of American Gods—the lush and lurid Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s beloved 2001 fantasy opus—has dropped and it looks, well, pretty good actually. The series—a big-budget blending of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of Read more >
Joe Biden’s presidency has not yet begun, so one might think it would be too soon to start planning its depiction on television. Think again! Less than a month after Biden’s win, Showtime has optioned an upcoming book by John Read more >
Yes, you read that right: novelist, short story writer, photographer, and video artist Akwaeke Emezi is also a poet. Copper Canyon Press announced today that Emezi’s debut poetry collection, Content Warning: Everything, will be released in 2022. In a thread Read more >
The Cundill History Prize, founded in 2008 by the late Peter Cundill, recognizes and awards history writing in English that demonstrates originality, literary excellence, and public appeal. The award comes with a $75,000 purse, and its two runners-up each receive a Recognition Read more >
Jason Reynolds: two-time National Book Award finalist, TIME 100 Next honoree, and, apparently, real-life angel. Yesterday, for Giving Tuesday, the Look Both Ways and Ghost author let us know via Twitter that he’d bought the entire inventory of his books Read more >
Here’s a heartening update to a terrible story: In November, Allegheny County Jail came under fire for instituting a draconian policy banning its incarcerated population from receiving physical books in the mail, only giving them access to 263 pre-approved eBooks Read more >
Some very exciting news has just come over the wire from Literary Adaptation Land (itself not so much a physical place as a daydreamy state of mind for authors the world over): Douglas Stuart’s 2020 Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain is Read more >
YES! The volunteer-run, collectively owned radical bookstore and activist center Bluestockings is reopening in a new location after shutting down over the summer and fall. In July, Bluestockings announced they were shutting down their original location at 172 Allen Street Read more >
What do Brit Bennett, Megan Thee Stallion, and Sascha Baron Cohen all have in common? They’ve all joined The Weeknd in being named Entertainment Weekly’s 2020 Entertainers of the Year. Though I’ve loved Bennett since her 2017 debut novel The Read more >
The Romantic Novelists’ Association is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, and as part of their celebrations, they’ve conducted a poll, asking readers and RNA members which romantic novels from the last 60 years have most captured their attention. And Read more >
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey’s Memorial Drive—a harrowing memoir of a daughter reckoning with the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of her stepfather—has been optioned by Sony Pictures Television for development as a drama series. Recently heralded Read more >
Poet Jamie Hood’s how to be a good girl, from Grieveland Press, comes out on December 8, and I’m already getting excited. A hybrid of diary, poetry, fragments, and criticism, how to be a good girl grapples with canonical texts Read more >
The December 2020 issue of The Volta, out now, includes an “In Memoriam” feature on poet and memoirist Molly Brodak. The feature includes 20 previously unpublished poems from Brodak’s final decade of life: “A Letter,” “A Meeting,” “Ark,” “Bargain,” “Camp,” Read more >
Today, The Financial Times and McKinsey & Company announced the winner of its 2020 Business Book of the Year Award, which recognizes a work that provides the “most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues.” The prize comes with £30,000 Read more >
Now that you’ve purchased new house slippers, a floor lamp, and an air fryer at slight discounts (anyone else? just me?), why not consider donating a few dollars to these very worthy literary organizations, nonprofits, and volunteer-run bookshops? * ORGANIZATIONS Read more >
The universally loved Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit is so popular it’s affecting our purchasing habits. According to U.S. Retail Tracking Service data from NPD, sales of chess books have jumped a whopping 603 percent since the miniseries was released. Read more >
Yes, the two-time National Book Award finalist and America’s most famous contemporary practitioner of the Joni Mitchell school of marriage fiction (think about it) is returning to the novel game. Riverhead Books announced earlier this afternoon that Matrix—Groff’s first novel Read more >
It is a truth universally acknowledged . . . that Northanger Abbey is less quotable than Pride and Prejudice. Nevertheless, Northanger Abbey is the latest of Austen’s six novels to be adapted into an illustrated children’s book for the Awesomely Read more >
Gregory Forth’s A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path has won the U.K.-based Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, beating out runner-up Kathryn L. Smithies’s Introducing the Medieval Ass for the honor. No, it’s not autofiction: Read more >
