Text
April 23, 2013
3 notes

Remembering E.L. Konigsburg (1930-2013)


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

Photoset
April 22, 2013
4 notes

Congratulations to 2012 National Book Award authors Katherine Boo (Nonfiction Winner), Robert Caro (Nonfiction Finalist), and Ben Fountain (Fiction Finalist), as well as three-time NBA Poetry Finalist Louise Glück, on their 2013 L.A. Times Book Prizes! Congratulations also to 1974 NBA Arts & Letters Finalist Kevin Starr on receiving the 2012 Kirsch Award.

For more about the prize and the winners, visit www.latimes.com/bookprizes.

Photoset
April 17, 2013

Today is the birthday of Thornton Wilder, National Book Award Fiction Winner in 1968 for The Eighth Day, a novel about two families torn apart by the apparent murder of one father by the other. Learn more and read an appreciation of the book on our National Book Awards Fiction blog.

Video
April 15, 2013
1 note

Congratulations to 2012 National Book Award Fiction Winner Louise Erdrich on becoming the first writer to win five Minnesota Book Awards! Read about this latest honor in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and click above to watch a video of Erdrich reading from The Round House at the 2012 National Book Award Finalists Reading.

Photo
April 02, 2013
1 note
Video from this year’s National Book Awards on Campus with 2012 NBA Winner Louise Erdrich and Finalist Domingo Martinez, interviewed by NPR’s Neal Conan, is now up on Concordia College’s website. CLICK HERE TO WATCH.

Video from this year’s National Book Awards on Campus with 2012 NBA Winner Louise Erdrich and Finalist Domingo Martinez, interviewed by NPR’s Neal Conan, is now up on Concordia College’s website. CLICK HERE TO WATCH.

Photo
April 01, 2013
11 notes
Our new National Book Awards online entry form is now live! Eligible publishers can register, submit the form, and pay online, all through one simple system. We will be accepting 2013 entries through June 3. Please read the official guidelines for more info, and also check out our exciting list of Judges for this year. Design by Erica Hood

Our new National Book Awards online entry form is now live! Eligible publishers can register, submit the form, and pay online, all through one simple system. We will be accepting 2013 entries through June 3. Please read the official guidelines for more info, and also check out our exciting list of Judges for this year.

Design by Erica Hood

Photo
March 28, 2013
8 notes
Today is the birthday of Nelson Algren, who won the very first National Book Award for Fiction in 1950 for The Man with the Golden Arm. You can learn more about Algren and read appreciations of the novel on our National Book Awards Fiction blog.

Today is the birthday of Nelson Algren, who won the very first National Book Award for Fiction in 1950 for The Man with the Golden Arm. You can learn more about Algren and read appreciations of the novel on our National Book Awards Fiction blog.

Photo
March 25, 2013
Nigerian-born author and poet Chinua Achebe has passed away at age 82. Joseph Bruchac wrote about Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, for our “The Book That Changed My Life” series. Click here to read his short essay. Photo by Darryl Estrine

Nigerian-born author and poet Chinua Achebe has passed away at age 82. Joseph Bruchac wrote about Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, for our “The Book That Changed My Life” series. Click here to read his short essay.

Photo by Darryl Estrine

Photo
March 18, 2013
2 notes
“The book industry scarcely needs glamour when it has at its command something better: beauty―the beauty of the book.” -John Updike Today is the birthday of John Updike, two-time National Book Award Winner for Fiction, in 1964 for The Centaur, and in 1982 for Rabbit Is Rich. He also received the Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1998.

“The book industry scarcely needs glamour when it has at its command something better: beauty―the beauty of the book.” -John Updike

Today is the birthday of John Updike, two-time National Book Award Winner for Fiction, in 1964 for The Centaur, and in 1982 for Rabbit Is Rich. He also received the Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1998.

Photoset
March 14, 2013

Patricia McCormick has been a National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature twice: in 2006 for Sold, and in 2012 for Never Fall Down. A film adaptation of Sold, starring David Arquette and Gillian Anderson and directed by Jeffrey D. Brown, is currently in post-production and scheduled for release in 2014. The film was funded largely by a group of Seattle women whose goal was to raise awareness about sexual trafficking. For more information about the film and the cause, visit SoldtheMovie.com.

Thanks to Patricia McCormick for sending us these great photos!