On May 11, BookUp students and instructors from all five New York City sites gathered at La Casa Azul Bookstore in East Harlem for the second annual BookUpNYC end-of-year party. Click here to see more photos from the event.
Author Teresa Ann Willis visited a few of our BookUpNYC sites this year. All students received a copy of Willis’ book, Like a Tree Without Roots, and the students at the University Settlement site, led by author/instructor Eisa Ulen, followed up the visit by writing letters to Willis. Click here to see a slideshow of the students’ letters to Willis, as well as her response to the group.
Poet and Farrar, Straus and Giroux publisher Jonathan Galassi, four-time National Book Award Poetry Finalist Carl Phillips, Elbrun Kimmelman, and National Book Award Poetry Winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate W. S. Merwin at a Library of America reception in Merwin’s honor hosted by Peter and Elbrun Kimmelman. Photo by Helen Houghton.
On April 15, our BookUpTexas students went to Houston’s Brazos Bookstore to see Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni read from and discuss her work. Divakaruni is an award-winning author, poet, and teacher, and she was a National Book Awards Fiction Judge in 2000. See more photos from the reading on our website.
Photo by Francine Parker
We’re thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Innovations in Reading Prizes:
City National Bank for Reading Is the Way Up (Los Angeles, CA)
Little Free Library (Hudson, WI)
The Uni Project (New York, NY)
The Uprise Books Project (Vancouver, WA)
Worldreader (Seattle, WA)
To learn more about the Innovations in Reading Prize and each of the winners, click here.
Watch the trailer for National Book Award Winner Nathaniel Philbrick’s new book, Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution (Viking, 2013). Philbrick won the NBA for Nonfiction in 2000 for In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Learn more about the new book on Philbrick’s website.
1998 National Book Award Poetry Winner Gerald Stern’s latest collection, In Beauty Bright (W.W. Norton, 2012), was selected by School Library Journal as an Adult Book 4 Teens! Click here to read the National Poetry Month post on SLJ.com, and click here to view Gerald Stern’s page on our National Book Awards Poetry blog.
Innovations in Reading Prize winner James Patterson calls for action to save our books, bookstores, and libraries. Read more in Publishers Weekly.
Children’s book author and illustrator E.L. Konigsburg has passed away at age 83. Konigsburg was nominated for the National Book Award for Children’s Books twice, in 1974 for A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, and in 1980 for Throwing Shadows.
Click here to read her obituary in The New York Times.
Click here to read Judy Blume’s acceptance speech for the 2004 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which she dedicated to Konigsburg and other children’s book writers.
Photo © Ron Kunzman
Our mission is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of great writing in America. In addition to the annual National Book Awards, we also present educational programs, public events, and more all across the U.S. For more information, visit our website, NationalBook.org.
