F219.

Celebrating the National Book Critics Circle's First Book Award

Michael A. Nutter Theater, Pennsylvania Convention Center, 100 Level
Friday, March 25, 2022
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm

 

A literary partner featured event focused on the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard award winners, introduced by NBCC VP/Events Jane Ciabattari, moderated by NBCC President David Varno, featuring Leonard award winners Raven Leilani, Carmen Maria Machado, and Kirstin Valdez Quade. They’ll focus on launching a literary career, inspiration and research for their work, the influence of Leonard and other awards, evolving forms, the unique challenges of writing in these times, and the imaginative process that shapes their work. This event will be livestreamed. ASL interpretation and live captioning will be provided.



Participants

Moderator:

David Varno is the president of the National Book Critics Circle and the fiction reviews editor at Publishers Weekly. His fiction and criticism have appeared in BOMB, the Brooklyn Rail, the Literary Review, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Tin House, and Words Without Borders

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of National Book Award finalist story collection Her Body and Other Parties and the memoir In the Dream House. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, and her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Tin House, Conjunctions, and elsewhere.

Raven Leilani’s first novel, Luster, won the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Leilani received her MFA from NYU and was an Axinn Foundation writer in residence.

Kirstin Valdez Quade's story collection, Night at the Fiestas won the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard award, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, a 5 Under 35”award from the National Book Foundation, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. She is an assistant professor at Princeton.
#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center