The 2017 Whiting Award winners were announced tonight at a ceremony in Manhattan, and this year’s list of ten honorees includes Francisco Cantú (The Line Becomes a River), Simone Wright (Of Being Dispersed), Phillip B. Williams (Thief in the Interior), Kaitlyn Greenidge (We Love You, Charlie Freeman), Tony Tulathimutte (Private Citizens), Jen Beagin (Pretend I’m Dead), and Lisa Halliday (Asymmetry) as well as playwrights Clarence Coo, James Ijames, and Clare Barron. The award, which recognizes early-career writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, comes with a $50,000 prize. Excerpts from each writer’s work can be read at The Paris Review.
The 2017 Whiting Award Winners
Tuesday New Release Day: Wolitzer, Aciman, Berg, Brennert
New this week: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer, Harvard Square by André Aciman, Tapestry of Fortunes by Elizabeth Berg, and Palisades Park by Alan Brennert.
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Get Your Popcorn Ready. The Criterion Collection Hits Hulu Plus.
Looking for something to watch this weekend? Got Hulu Plus? Well, start working your way through the veritable treasure trove that is the Criterion Collection. And don’t worry. If you’re as overwhelmed by the selection as I am, this top ten list by filmmaker Dean Peterson can serve as a great guide. Also, for what it’s worth, I’m partial to Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev.
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Take Shelter
“I found it hard to escape the sensation that I’d be teaching inside a giant metaphor.” Rachel Kadish once taught a creative writing class in a bomb shelter, but rather than stifling her students’ work, it allowed her to see how writing can act as a shelter, too.
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The Yellow King’s Clue
Recommended Viewing: Artist Todd Spence has drawn True Detective as a series of Hardy Boys novels. Pair with: Our essay on what female detective novels to read after True Detective.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Baxter, McElroy, McSweeney’s, Carey
New out this week is Gryphon, Charles Baxter’s new collection of stories. Joseph McElroy also has a new collection of stories out, Night Soul. The latest McSweeney’s (featuring that fragment from an abandoned novel by Michael Chabon) is now available, and new in paperback is Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America. Many more new books to look forward to, of course, in our massive preview published last week.
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Hashtag No Filter
“How are their vacations? Do they inspire envy in a way that’s beguiling, or merely crass? Are they eating in the right places?” In the past year, 30 billion photographs were uploaded to Instagram; 80 million go up every day. On the iPhone as camera lucida.
Related: the pornification of food.
P.S.
The summer issue of Prairie Schooner has a short story of mine in it, as well as other good stuff, for most of which a subscription is required. You don’t need one, however, to read this short interview (very much in keeping with the Where We Write theme).
A Bookish Father’s Day
Looking for the perfect book for Father’s Day, but didn’t find quite what you were looking for in our list? Lit Hub has some supplemental titles you might be interested in.
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