SOLD OUT: Germaine Greer at BAM for the Eat, Drink and Be Literary Series, April 2

Germaine Greer is one of eight acclaimed authors scheduled to appear at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) for Eat, Drink & Be Literary: Dinner and a Reading series in BAMcafé from February to May. 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. At 8:00 p.m. the literary program begins with authors reading from their works, after which they will participate in a discussion with the moderator and answer questions from audience members.

The upcoming featured authors and moderators are:

• April 2: Germaine Greer, with Katha Pollitt - SOLD OUT
• April 23: Richard Price, with Aoibheann Sweeney - SOLD OUT
• May 7: Ha Jin, with Aoibheann Sweeney - SOLD OUT

For more information, visit www.bam.org.

A Day in the Life of BookUp, The Foundation's Reading Program for Teens

Click on image to watch "A Day in the Life of a BookUp Field Trip" slide show.

Groups of middle school students were poring over their new copies of Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer in author-instructor Lissette Norman's BookUpNYC session at I.S. 318 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn last week. Some kids chatted about the book, others quietly studied the flap copy and author photo. Each student's desk was stacked with titles they've been reading in BookUp, like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and El Bronx Remembered by Nicholasa Mohr.

BookUpNYC is an after-school program designed to encourage kids to read for pleasure. Students meet weekly with author-instructors at after-school sites in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan. Authors and students also attend two weekend field trips each semester, visiting libraries and bookstores in their own and other boroughs and meeting students from other sites. BookUp sessions at I.S. 318 are held in English teacher Kathryn Archipolo's classroom, and the space radiates with warmth. Everyone in the room chooses to stay after school to read and talk about books. Norman says, of her students, "The kids are so sharp. Just going through all the books and having discussions is the best part of it...their take on it, their interpretations of what they're reading, to me that's the most fun."

In a conversation about students' favorite books so far, Leonardo, 12, said he enjoyed reading Yes We Can, Garen Thomas's biography of Barack Obama, which students received in the fall after hearing Thomas speak during a field trip to Hue-Man books in Harlem. Everyone spoke highly of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Winner of the 2007 National Book Award for Young People's Literature). Norman said students were so engaged with The Absolutely True Diary... that "they didn't want to go to their break because they wanted to keep reading and finish off the chapter." All the students agreed that one of the best parts of BookUpNYC is receiving copies of books to take home. Only one complaint was issued about the free books. Jasmine, 12, said, "My library has increased a lot, and I have nowhere to put my books now."

Please visit the BookUpNYC website, http://www.nationalbook.org/bookupnyc.html to read the full version of this story and to see videos and slideshows of BookUp students and instructors.

How Well Do You Know the Women of the National Book Award?

"........The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. .......... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry......."

Read Carson's entire acceptance speech at http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_rcarson.html.

~ Marianne Moore was the first woman to win the NBA in poetry (1952).

"To be trusted is an ennobling experience, and poetry is a peerless proficiency of the imagination. I prize it, but am myself an observer; I can see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it........''

Read Moore's acceptance speech at http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_mmoore.html.

~ Katherine Anne Porter was the first woman to win the National Book Award in Fiction (1966).

"................I've said many times that art is not religion and it is not a substitute for religion, but I have a strange feeling that maybe it springs from the same source in the human being that the religious spirit does...''

Read Porter's acceptance speech at http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_kporter.html.

~ Katherine Paterson is the only woman to have won the National Book Award twice in Children's Books (1977 and 1979). In 1977 for The Master Puppeteer and in 1979 for The Great Gilly Hopkins.

"A woman asked me recently why I 'wasted my time writing exotic historical fiction for children.' I was shaken because I believe that growing up and making responsible choices are universal rather than alien or exotic themes......''

Read Paterson's 1977 acceptance speech at http://www.nationalbook.org/writerscraft_kpaterson.html.

View a slideshow of National Book Award facts for Women's History Month on our homepage at http://www.nationalbook.org/index.html.

NBF Partners with Concordia College for Annual NBA on Campus, March 26-27

For the fourth consecutive year, the Foundation is partnering with Concordia College, in Moorhead, Minnesota, and Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) to present the annual National Book Awards on Campus Weekend, this year featuring Maxine Hong Kingston, the 2008 recipient of the Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and Annette Gordon-Reed, the 2008 National Book Award Winner in Nonfiction for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.

As part of the visit, on Thursday evening, March 26, Kingston and Gordon-Reed 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.

Coverage of the event will be available on the Foundation’s website.

More about the authors at http://www.nationalbook.org:

• Watch Kingston's acceptance speech from the National Book Awards ceremony at www.nationalbook.org/amerletters_2008_kingston.html.
• Watch Gordon-Reed's acceptance speech from the 2008 National Book Awards ceremony and her reading at the National Book Awards Finalist Event www.nationalbook.org/nba2008_nf_gordon_reed.html.
• Read an interview with Gordon-Reed and an excerpt of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family at www.nationalbook.org/nba2008_nf_gordon_reed.html.

Photos: Robin Platzer, Twin Images

NBF Partners with Seven Stories Press and Steppenwolf Theater to Celebrate Nelson Algren's Centennial

The event will take place at the world-renowned Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago on Monday, April 6. Algren's friends and admirers will present dramatic readings from his works, including the unfinished novel, Entrapment, to be published by Seven Stories Press in April. Readers include Russell Banks, Estelle Parsons, John Malkovich, and Don DeLillo. The script is by Barry Gifford and Dan Simon. The National Book Foundation’s Executive Director, Harold Augenbraum, will introduce the program, kicking off the Foundation’s look at its first sixty years. In 1950, Nelson Algren’s The Man With the Golden Arm received the first National Book Award in Fiction.

Event:

April 6, 2009, 7:00 p.m.
1650 N. Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60614
Tickets are $20.00 via Steppenwolf box office, 312-335-1650 or www.steppenwolf.org

The presentation will be recorded by M3A Films, and DVDs will be distributed to schools and libraries with the help of the National Book Foundation.

More about Algren and the Literary Masters series at http://www.nationalbook.org/literary_masters.html.

Calling all readers, writers, librarians, booksellers, teachers, or anyone curious about the National Book Foundation's programs and the National Book Awards to visit us at BookExpo America, booth #2977, from May 28 to May 31 at Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

The Foundation will give away Reading Hotspot maps and professionally designed stuffers that list National Book Awards Winners and Finalists from 1950 to the present.

Staff will be on hand to discuss the Foundation's programs, which include:

• 5 Under 35, the recognition and celebration of the next generation of fiction writers
• Innovations in Reading, a prize that rewards individuals and institutions for developing innovative methods that sustain lifelong love of reading
• Teen Press Conference, features the current National Book Award Finalists in Young People's Literature
• BookUp, the program that runs book clubs for pre-teens and teens in order to inspire a life-long love of reading

Free promotional materials available to librarians.

For information about attending BookExpo America visit www.bookexpoamerica.com.

THE CONVERSATION BOX

Wanted for Questioning:
Adults Reading Young Adults Books

The Foundation would like to know the title or titles of the young adult books you have read or are reading and what drew you to the book.

Please send a short email to nationalbook@nationalbook.org.

Mark These Dates

March 26 - 27

National Book Award Campus Weekend with Concordia College and MPR featuring Maxine Hong Kingston, the 2008 recipient of The Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and Annette Gordon-Reed, the 2008 National Book Award Winner in Nonfiction in Moorhead, MN.

April 6

Nelson Algren Live: The 100^th Birthday Celebration at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, IL

Dates for the 2009
National Book Awards

April 15

Guidelines and entry forms mailed to publishers.

June 15

Entry form deadline.

November 18
National Book Awards

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