Events Calendar Copy – 6 months

2020 National Book Award–honored novelists Megha Majumdar (A Burning, Longlist, Fiction) and Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown, Winner, Fiction) visit Amherst College’s annual, and now virtual, LitFest.

Moderated by visiting writer Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint.

This program is supported by Amherst College and The Common magazine.

Register here on our partner’s website.

2020 National Book Award–honored poets Tommye Blount (Fantasia for the Man in Blue, Finalist, Poetry) and Natalie Diaz (Postcolonial Love Poem, Finalist, Poetry) join John Hennessy, poetry editor for The Common and judge for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry, for Amherst College’s annual, and now virtual, LitFest.

This program is supported by Amherst College and The Common magazine.

Register here on our partner’s website.

2020 National Book Award–honored authors Lydia Millet (A Children’s Bible, Finalist, Fiction), Jenn Shapland (My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, Finalist, Nonfiction), and Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown, Winner, Fiction) come together for a cross-genre discussion on inspiration, reading, and recognition. Presented in partnership with the Tucson Festival of Books.

Moderated by Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart, Abandon Me, and Girlhood (forthcoming).

More information and RSVP coming soon.

The National Book Foundation’s sixteenth year of partnership with Concordia College features a reading and conversation with National Book Award–honored authors Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed (When Stars Are Scattered, 2020 Young People’s Literature Finalist) and David Treuer (The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to Present, 2019 Nonfiction Finalist).

Moderated by John Ydstie, a former NPR correspondent.

More information and RSVP coming soon.

This program is supported by Concordia College and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in honor of Earl Lewis ‘78.

Three 2020 honorees for the National Book Award for Fiction Rumaan Alam (Leave the World Behind, Finalist), Megha Majumdar (A Burning, Longlist), and Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Finalist) discuss their books and fiction’s place in contemporary American culture. Presented in partnership with the Virginia Festival of the Book, this event will be available for free on-demand viewing at VaBook.org.

Register here.

Moderated by Randy Winston, the fiction editor at Slice Literary Magazine.

Registration is required. Please register here.

To question the “other” in American identity, join National Book Award–honored authors Laila Lalami (The Other Americans, 2019 Fiction Finalist), Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Heads of the Colored People, 2018 Fiction Longlist), and Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (The Undocumented Americans, 2020 Nonfiction Finalist) for a conversation on borders, immigration, and outsiders, and what it means to write one’s self into existence.

Moderated by Concepción de León, a New York Times reporter.

Books are available for purchase at Bookshop.org with thanks to this season’s bookseller, Loyalty Bookstores.

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.

It’s National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, National Book Award–honored authors Toi Derricotte (“I”: New and Selected Poems, 2019 Poetry Finalist), Camonghne Felix (Build Yourself a Boat, 2019 Poetry Longlist), and Terrance Hayes (Lighthead, 2010 Poetry Winner; How to Be Drawn, 2015 Poetry Finalist; American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, 2018 Poetry Finalist) discuss the impact of protest poetry on American literature and American politics.

Moderated by Kyle Dacuyan, Executive Director of The Poetry Project.

Books are available for purchase at Bookshop.org with thanks to this season’s bookseller, Loyalty Bookstores.

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.

Hurricane Season is the story of a dead witch set in a small town in Mexico. The book, translated from the Spanish, found a global audience and recognition. 2020 National Book Award Longlist author and translator Fernanda Melchor and Sophie Hughes come together for a conversation on the trust-fall act—and art—of literary translation, and the significance of a reader’s access to international perspectives.

Moderated by Shuchi Saraswat, writer, editor, and founder of The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith.

Books are available for purchase at Bookshop.org with thanks to this season’s bookseller, Loyalty Bookstores.

NBF Presents’ season finale recognizes the historical and literary significance of Black trans and nonbinary narratives with National Book Award–honored authors Kacen Callender (King and the Dragonflies, 2020 Young People’s Literature Winner), Akwaeke Emezi (Pet, 2019 Young People’s Literature Finalist), and Danez Smith (Don’t Call Us Dead, 2017 Poetry Finalist) for a discussion on trans and nonbinary stories that make room for both queer pain and joy.

Moderated by Celeste Chan, writer and Queer Ancestors Project facilitator.

Books are available for purchase at Bookshop.org with thanks to this season’s bookseller, Loyalty Bookstores.

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.