Call for Submissions: A New Anthology Spotlighting Fiction by HBCU Students

Ebony LaDelle, author of Love Radio, is editing an anthology of love stories set at Historically Black Colleges and Universities to be published by Ballantine Books. Contributors include Kiese Laymon, Elizabeth Acevedo, Farrah Rochon, Dawnie Walton, and more. Ballantine is hosting an open call for submissions from current undergrad and graduate HBCU students for stories,

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Remembering Cormac McCarthy

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy died on June 13th, 2023 of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was eighty-nine years old. His death was confirmed by his son, John McCarthy. McCarthy was one of the world’s most influential and renowned writers, His career spanned nearly six decades and several genres,

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From Page to Screen: Watch the Movie Trailer for This Summer’s Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing, the #1 New York Times bestselling book by Delia Owens has been adapted into a major motion picture, coming to theaters nationwide on July 15.  For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found

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With Her Historical Epic Palmares, Gayl Jones Makes Her Long-Awaited Literary Return

It was a long wait before Gayl Jones broke her years of silence. When Toni Morrison first discovered her, she said “no novel about any Black woman could ever be the same after this” upon reading the manuscript for Corregidora. It was published in 1975 when Jones was twenty-six. She followed up her debut novel with Eva’s

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Reading A DROP OF PATIENCE Through a Blind-Culture Lens

Written by By M. Leona Godin, author of There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness In William Melvin Kelley’s A Drop of Patience, we follow the life of a young Black musician named Ludlow Washington, who is placed in a school for the blind when he is five and remains there until

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William Melvin Kelley is awarded the American Book Award for DUNFORDS TRAVELS EVERYWHERES

William Melvin Kelley and illustrator Aiki Kelley are being awarded the American Book Award for Dunfords Travels Everywheres, a Joycean, Rabelaisian romp in which he brings back some of his most memorable characters in a novel of three intertwining stories.   “Among the most innovative and exciting novelists in the history of international literature, the

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Remembering William Melvin Kelley, author of A DIFFERENT DRUMMER

Associate Professor of English at Vanderbilt University Anthony Reed remembers William Melvin Kelley.   William Melvin Kelley is often described as a “lost” or “forgotten” author. Those who needed to know about him have always had a way of finding him. As a young writer, interested in fiction and poetry, I knew a lot about

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Megha Majumdar’s debut novel A BURNING is an urgent story of class, fate, corruption, and justice

A Burning is a novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India. Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of

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THE FRIEND wins the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction

We celebrate THE FRIEND by Sigrid Nunez, published by Riverhead, chosen by the panel of five judges from 368 submissions, as the recipient of the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction, announced Wednesday evening, November 14, at the annual National Book Foundation dinner in downtown Manhattan. Sigrid Nunez’s previous literary honors include a Whiting Writer’s Award, and

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Penguin Random House Fiction Finalists for the 2018 National Book Awards

Presenting the five finalists for the 2018 National Book Awards published by Penguin Random House     Fiction: FLORIDA by Lauren Groff (Riverhead Books, Penguin Audio) THE GREAT BELIEVERS by Rebecca Makkai (Viking Books, Penguin Audio) THE FRIEND by Sigrid Nunez (Riverhead Books, Penguin Audio) Poetry: AMERICAN SONNETS FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN by Terrance Hayes (Penguin Books) Translated Literature: FLIGHTS by Olga Tokarczuk,

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2015 National Book Award Winners Announced

First presented in 1950, the National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards presented by the National Book Foundation, whose mission is “to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America.” Congratulations to the Random House authors who have been selected as winners in the following categories: poetry, fiction, non-fiction.

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