Michael Christie's IF I FALL, IF I DIE is long-listed for the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize

Huge congratulations to Michael Christie for making the longlist of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, one of the biggest prizes for fiction in Canada. Past winners include Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, and Michael Ondaatje, and this year, twenty two books were selected from a record number of submitted titles. The shortlist will be announced on October 5, 2015.

Of the longlist, the jury (including John Boyne, Cecil Foster, Alexander MacLeod, Alison Pick, and Helen Oyeyemi) wrote: “It’s been a joy to immerse ourselves in a world of fiction that speaks of the past and present, of women and men, of rural and urban identities, of humans and animals, of lives lived well and lives lived badly. While the writing we’ve encountered has been marked by audacity and wit, eccentricity and elegance, it has also reminded us of the extraordinary treasures to be found in contemporary Canadian literature."

See the full longlist here.

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A rave of Lauren Groff's FATES AND FURIES gets the cover of this week's Book Review

"There’s always the danger, with novels structured around a marriage, that they’ll be perceived as centrally concerned not only with that particular relationship but with the nature of marriage itself. A domestic union set prominently in a work of fiction has the sometimes unfortunate capacity to obscure whatever else is going on. Yet “Fates and Furies,” Lauren Groff’s remarkable new novel, explodes and rages past any such preconceptions, insisting that the examination of a long-term relationship can be a perfect vehicle for exploring no less than the nature of existence — the domestic a doorway to the philosophical."

Read the full review here.

 

Ottessa Moshfegh's EILEEN is on the cover of the NYTBR, and it's a RAVE!

Lily King reviews Ottessa Moshfegh's EILEEN on the cover of the Book Review:

“Eileen is anything but generic. Eileen is as vivid and human as they come.”

“Seductive novel”

“Moshfegh…writes beautiful sentences. One after the other they unwind – playful, shocking, wise, morbid, witty, searingly sharp."

"The beginning of this novel is so impressive, so controlled yet whimsical, fresh and thrilling, you feel she can do anything.”

“There is that wonderful tension between wanting to slow down and bathe in the language and imagery, and the impulse to race to see what happens, how it happens."

Read the full review here.

We've moved!

As of the end of last week, we've moved into our beautiful new offices at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 20th Street. We're up to our ears in cardboard and bubblewrap, but as soon as we have everything set up, we'll share photos! 

Lauren Groff turns her wise eye on marriage in this week's New Yorker

Check out Lauren Groff's new story, "Ghosts and Empties," in this week's New Yorker. And while you're at it, go pre-order her new novel, Fates and Furies, due out from Riverhead in September!

"I have somehow become a woman who yells, and, because I do not want to be a woman who yells, whose little children walk around with frozen, watchful faces, I have taken to lacing on my running shoes after dinner and going out into the twilit streets for a walk, leaving the undressing and sluicing and reading and singing and tucking in of the boys to my husband, a man who does not yell."

Read the full story here.

Carolyn Forché is a finalist for the Neustadt Prize

We’re thrilled to announce that Carolyn Forché, for selections from her poetry collection In the Lateness of the World, is a finalist for the 24th Nuestadt International Prize for Literature. The Prize, considered to be “America’s Nobel”, is the most prestigious international literary award given in the US, and comes with a $50,000 cash prize. We’re also delighted to note that for the first time in the history of the Prize, the majority of the finalists are female writers. Congratulations, Carolyn! 

Carolyn's citation:

Carolyn Forché was born in Detroit in 1950. She is the author of five books of poetry and has been distinguished with the Yale Younger Poets Award, Lamont Selection of the Academy of American Poets, Los Angeles Times Book Award and Robert Creeley Award. She also has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2004, she was named a trustee of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, Canada’s premier award for poetry. Her fellowships have included the National Endowment for the Arts, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. Beyond her writing career, Forché has dedicated herself to advancing human rights, being recognized with the Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation Award for Peace and Culture in 1998 for her work. Forché is currently a professor of English and director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.

See the full list of finalists here.

Rob Spillman wins the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Editing

We're happy to share the news that Rob Spillman, editor and co-founder of the literary magazine Tin House, has been awarded the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Editing.

From the judges: "Year after year, Rob Spillman has been committed to both the trajectory of literature in America and the diversity of its writers. As editor and cofounder of Tin House, which launched in 1999, Rob has consistently sought and published distinctly literary work: fiction with a strong narrative voice; elegant, incisive poetry; intelligent, absorbing essays, interviews, and features; and a 'Lost & Found' section for under appreciated books unearthed by contemporary writers—all of this packaged in a handsome edition that is as much a joy to hold as to read. Rob has also expanded Tin House’s online presence, offering a significant amount of current and back issue content and a richly curated, daily updated blog. By including a wide range of writers, seeking new and unpublished voices, and being on the forefront of the move from print to digital, Rob Spillman has created an inclusive, vibrant literary community at Tin House, one that provides an encouraging glimpse into the future of letters."

See the full list of PEN award-winners here.