Events Calendar Copy – 6 months

All of the National Book Award Finalists in Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature traditionally gather before the Awards Ceremony to read excerpts from their honored works. This year, the program will happen virtually, presented in partnership with The New School.

Please register here.

Join us for a [email protected] discussion with three-time National Book Awards finalist for Young People’s Literature Rita Williams-Garcia about her book Clayton Byrd Goes Underground. In the novel, Clayton follows his grandfather’s footsteps as a blues musician on a journey that takes him through the New York City subways to Washington Square Park. This event is open to the public and will feature a student-generated Q+A with the author.

Registration is required. Please register here.

2020 Finalists and potential Winners Kacen Callender (King and the Dragonflies, Young People’s Literature), Natalie Diaz (Postcolonial Love Poem, Poetry), and Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Fiction) discuss their work and recognition in advance of the 71^st Annual National Book Awards, presented in partnership with the Texas Book Festival.

Moderated by Cristina Rodriguez, general manager and head buyer at Deep Vellum Books.

Please RSVP here.

The National Book Foundation presents its lifetime achievement awards to the 2020 honorees, and announces this year’s winners of the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature, Translated Literature, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction.

More information to RSVP coming soon.

The National Book Foundation launches the third and final year of Literature for Justice, a nationwide, book-based campaign that presents an annual reading list to further investigate the carceral system and urge readers forward. The event will feature this year’s selected authors—Dionne Brand (Ossuaries), Nicole R. Fleetwood (Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration), Ruth Wilson Gilmore (Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California), Sarah Haley (No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and then Making of Jim Crow Modernity), Kelly Lytle Hernández (City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965), and Albert Woodfox (Solitary)—and committee members Susan Burton, Natalie Diaz, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Mariame Kaba, and Piper Kerman, and a question-and-answer session. Presented in partnership with Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop and Public Welfare Foundation.

Supported by the Art for Justice Fund, a sponsored project of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, in partnership with the Ford Foundation.

Join us for a [email protected] discussion with National Book Awards finalist for Young People’s Literature Ibi Zoboi about her book My Life as an Ice-Cream Sandwich, the story of a young girl finding her place in a world that’s changing at warp speed. This event is open to the public and will feature a student-generated Q+A with the author.

Registration is required. Please register here.

National Book Award–honored authors Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge, Finalist, Nonfiction), Jason Reynolds (Ghost, Finalist, Young People’s Literature; Long Way Down, Longlist, Young People’s Literature; and Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, Finalist, Young People’s Literature), and Tracy K. Smith (Ordinary Light, Finalist, Nonfiction) are invested in the next generation of readers and thinkers. Together, they discuss what a new curriculum can and should look like while the American school system faces ever-increasing challenges of equity and access.

Moderated by Mahogany L. Browne, author, Executive Director of Bowery Poetry Club, and Artistic Director at Urban Word NYC.

More information to RSVP coming soon.

Join us for our monthly Live Author Visit, featuring a student-generated Q+A with prominent authors of young people’s literature. We will be announcing this month’s featured author later this year. This event will be open to the public.

Registration is required. Please register here.

Join us for our monthly Live Author Visit, featuring a student-generated Q+A with prominent authors of young people’s literature. We will be announcing this month’s featured author later this year. This event will be open to the public.

Registration is required. Please register here.

Join us for our monthly Live Author Visit, featuring a student-generated Q+A with prominent authors of young people’s literature. We will be announcing this month’s featured author later this year. This event will be open to the public.

Registration is required. Please register here.