F203.
The Craft and Currency of the Literary Book Review
Friday, February 9, 2024
1:45 pm to 3:00 pm
Thousands of books are published each year. We're often led to them by intelligent, engaging, well-made book reviews, which not only investigate and articulate the mysteries and pleasures a literary text offers, but also please the reader with their style. Five widely published writers/critics/editors will discuss the review as a genre in its own right, a unique artistic form that contributes to a book's reception, raises the level of public discourse, and establishes critical reputation.
Participants
Joseph Salvatore is books editor at the Brooklyn Rail, a frequent reviewer at NY Times Book Review, and associate professor of writing at The New School. He is the author of the story collection To Assume a Pleasing Shape (BOA Editions) and coauthor of Understanding English Grammar (10/e, Pearson).
Cassie Packard is a Brooklyn-based cultural critic with bylines at publications including Artforum, Bookforum, Brooklyn Rail, frieze, Los Angeles Review of Books, and New Inquiry, among others. She has contributed to books and catalogues and is the recipient of several fellowships.
Julia Brown is an editor-at-large at AGNI and a former fiction editor at Gulf Coast. She is a writer, teacher, and doctoral student in the creative writing program at the University of Houston.
Chris Campanioni's research connecting media studies with studies of migration has been awarded a Mellon Foundation fellowship and the Calder Prize; his writing has received the International Latino Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, and an Academy of American Poets College Prize.
John Domini has eleven books in print, including novels, short stories, a 2021 memoir, and an earlier selection of criticism. He's written extensively on contemporary fiction for Lit Hub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. Awards include an NEA; he has taught at Harvard and elsewhere.
