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National
Book Award Author Interviews
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Print
and video interviews of the 2007 National Book Award
Winners and Finalists reveal how the authors
feel about being a National Book
Award Finalist, offer insight into how and why a
nominated book was conceived and written, and thoughts
on reading.
Following
are responses from authors shortly after they found
out they were announced National Book Award Finalists.
NBF: First and foremost,
congratulations on being a finalist for the National
Book Award! One of the staples of the finalist-interview
genre seems to be the question of where you were
when you found out. How did you find out about being
a finalist? Has it sunk in yet?
I
turned on my e-mail and found a number of messages
from friends, all headed either "National
Book Award" or "congratulations!"
Right away I suspected a mass practical joke. I
still do…..Denis
Johnson, National Book Award
Winner in Fiction for Tree
of Smoke.
NBF: While there's often a touchstone
for your poems in the experienced world, your work
has a different relationship to what's real than,
say, Robert Hass's does. How would you describe
it?
….. My relationship
to it probably relates to the fact that I’ve
actually been sick most of my life: I was a very sickly
kid. I’ve experienced my body as a place of
debility and crisis…..my sense of the oddity
of our embodiment is based on a keen awareness that
bodies are much more intelligent than we are.... Linda
Gregerson, National Book Award
Finalist in Poetry for Magnetic
North.
To read all twenty interviews in their entirety,
visit: http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2007.html.
Videos from the 2007 National Book Awards
(produced by Jason Boog): http://www.thepublishingspot.com.
Sherman
Alexie and Joshua Ferris:
http://www.thepublishingspot.com.
Kathleen
Duey and Sara Zarr:
http://www.thepublishingspot.com.
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National
Book Award Authors Joshua Ferris and Jim
Shepard Honored
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| Image:
(top) Joshua Ferris © Kelly
Campbell. (bottom) Jim Shepard ©
Jerry Bauer. |
Joshua
Ferris's Then We Came
to the End won the annual Barnes
& Noble Great New Writers Awards in Fiction.
The same book was also a 2007 National Book Award
Finalist in Fiction.
In Then We Came to the
End, employees at an ad agency in Chicago
confront layoffs, romance, gossip and pranks as
they try to work on a mysterious, impossible and
pro bono ad campaign.
Read an excerpt of Then
We Came to the End and
an interview
with Ferris.
Jim
Shepard’s 2007 National
Book Award Finalist for Fiction, Like You'd
Understand, Anyway, recently won the
fourth annual Story Prize.
Shepard’s collection of eleven short
stories features settings that include: the Chernobyl
nuclear meltdown and its aftermath, a Nazi expedition
in Tibet, and a female
cosmonaut preparing for a space launch. Read an
excerpt of Like
You'd Understand, Anyway
and an interview
with Shepard.
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Eat,
Drink and Be Literary Series, March and
April Lineup
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The National Book Foundation and the Brooklyn Academy
of Music (BAM) present eight acclaimed authors for
Eat,
Drink & Be Literary: Dinner and a Reading
in BAMcafé in 2008.
The events begin at 6:30 p.m. with live music and
wine provided by Napa
Valley's award-winning Pine Ridge Winery, followed
by a delicious buffet dinner in the BAMcafé
prepared by executive chef, Tim Sullivan. The author
readings and discussions begin at 8:00 p.m.
Upcoming featured authors and moderators are:
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March 13th: Fran
Lebowitz, with Aoibheann Sweeney, SOLD
OUT
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March 20th: Peter
Carey, with Aoibheann Sweeney,
a few tickets left
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April 3rd:
Shalom Auslander, with Harold Augenbraum,
a few tickets left
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April 17th: Charles
Simic, with Edward Hirsch, a
few tickets left
Tickets are $48 per event, including admission
to the reading, dinner, wine, tax, and tip.
A 20% discount is available to those who buy tickets
to five or more events.
For tickets and more information, visit the BAM
Box Office.
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| Foundation
Partners with Concordia College and MPR for Annual
NBAs on Campus Weekend |
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The
National Book Foundation is partnering with Concordia
College in Moorhead,
Minnesota and Minnesota Public Radio (MPR),
to present the third annual National
Book Awards on Campus Weekend featuring
Woody
Holton, the 2007 National Book
Award Finalist in Nonfiction for Unruly Americans
and the Origins of the Constitution, and Jim
Shepard, the 2007 National Book
Award Finalist in Fiction for Like You'd
Understand, Anyway.
As
part of the visit, on Thursday evening, March 27th,
Holton and Shepard will participate in a reading
and discussion to be hosted by MPR's Kerri Miller.
Miller is the host of MPR's Midmorning and Talking
Volumes - a joint book club of MPR, the Star
Tribune and the Loft Literary Center.
To
read interviews by Holton and Shepard or excerpts
from their books, visit www.nationalbook.org/nba2007.html.
Additional
information will be posted
on Concordia College's
website www.cord.edu.
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| Giving
to the National Book Foundation |
The National Book Foundation is a non-profit organization
that depends on the help of friends to support our
mission, to celebrate the best of American literature,
expand its audience, and enhance the cultural value
of good writing in America.
Please visit the Donate
Now page on
our website to strengthen the Foundation's public
and educational outreach programs by making a tax-deductible contribution
online. Thank
you for your support.
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Save
The Date
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| (c)
Nancy Crampton. |
Philip
Roth's 75th Birthday Tribute
Friday, April 11
4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Miller
Theatre, Columbia
University
2960
Broadway (at 116th Street), NYC
Admission
is free, but seating is limited. Please register
by April 4th by contacting rothtribute@columbia.edu
with your name and email address.
Denis
Johnson,
2007
NBA Winner in Fiction
Wednesday,
April 16
6:30 p.m
Tishman Auditorium
The New School
66 West 12th St.
(between 5th and 6th Ave.)
New
York City.
Admission is free.
NBA
Campus Weekend
March 27 - 28
with
Concordia College
and MPR featuring National
Book Award authors Woody
Holton and Jim
Shepard in Moorhead,
MN.
Important 2008 NBA Dates
Tuesday, April 15
Guidelines entry forms for National
Book Awards mailed to publishers.
Monday, June 16
National Book Award entry form deadline.
Wednesday, November
19
National Book Awards Ceremony
Cipriani Wall
Street
New
York City.
BookUp
NYC Events
Saturday,
March 15
Kingsbridge Heights Community Center & CAMBA
Renaissance Program/Brooklyn Field Trip.
Saturday,
March 22
Union Settlement/Harlem Field Trip.
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What's
new on
nationalbook.org
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Podcast
Corner
Deborah
Eisenberg at
the Foundation’s Eat,
Drink & Be Literary Series
at BAM, recorded on February 7, 2008.
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| From
our Archives: |
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| W.H.
Auden, 1956 Poetry Winner, with then
Senator John F. Kennedy, 1956 Awards Keynote
Speaker. © NBF Archives. All rights reserved.
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58
Years of Literature, and Counting,
an online exhibit of Award Winners and Finalist,
including Senator John F. Kennedy, keynote speaker
at the 1956 National Book Awards.
National
Book Award Classics: Essays Celebrating our Literary
Heritage, reflect on the
work of twelve National Book Award books. Written
by Neil Baldwin, the former Executive Director of
the National Book Foundation, the essays were originally
published by Ingram Book Group and Lightning Source
Inc.
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