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Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://compulsivereader.com
Volume 24, Issue 4, 1 April 2022
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IN THIS ISSUE
New Reviews at Compulsive Reader
Literary News
Competition News
Sponsored By
Coming soon
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Hello readers. Here is the latest batch of reviews and interviews:
A review of The Silence Between Us by Oceane Campbell and Cécile Barral
Both Oceane and Cécile are beautifully articulate, carefully unpicking their own wounds to find something universal in their experience. In breaking their silence, Oceane and Cécile create an allyship between mother and daughter that reverberates beyond their changing relationship to one another, themselves, their histories, and the world they live in. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/28/a-review-of-the-silence-between-us-by-oceane-campbell-and-cecile-barral/
A review of chalk borders by Sarah St Vincent Welch
St Vincent Welch’s poetry is characterised by originality, sincerity and engagement. Some of the poems have nostalgic overtones, while others leave room for complex reader interpretation and simultaneous meanings. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/27/a-review-of-chalk-borders-by-sarah-st-vincent-welch/
An interview with What Matters Most’s Courtney Walsh
The author of What Matters Most talks about her new book and its inspiration, her characters, writing about Nantucket, on writing about secrets, and lots more. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/26/an-interview-with-what-matters-mosts-courtney-walsh/
A review of They Called Us Girls by Kathleen Courtenay Stone
All in all, They Called Us Girls is a fascinating, inspiring, and well-written collection of biographies of seven exceptional women, bios told with personality and insight which bring these women and their triumphs to life. A grand celebration of women, released during March’s Women’s History Month, this is a book for men and women both to relish. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/24/a-review-of-they-called-us-girls-by-kathleen-courtenay-stone/
At night the humid chorus swells: A Conversation with Jacques Rancourt about his Newest Collection, Brocken Spectre
Jacques J. Rancourt is the author of two poetry collections, Brocken Spectre (Alice James Books) and Novena (Pleiades Press), as well as a chapbook, In the Time of PrEP (Beloit Poetry Journal). Raised in Maine, he lives in San Francisco with his partner and the world’s most anxious dog. Set in San Francisco, Brocken Spectre examines the way the past presses up against the present. The speaker, raised in the wake of the AIDS crisis, engages with ideas of belatedness, of looking back to a past that cannot be inhabited, of the ethics of memory, and of the dangers in memorializing and romanticizing tragedy. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/22/at-night-the-humid-chorus-swells-a-conversation-with-jacques-rancourt-about-his-newest-collection-brocken-spectre/
A review of House of Sticks by Ly Tran
Ly Tran’s House of Sticks beautifully captures what it means to be an immigrant in America: the struggle to adapt to your new world’s norms, the desperate desire to succeed there, and the love and heartache that your old life still haunts you with. The juxtaposition of holding onto her old identity while embracing her American one with her belief that escaping everything that is connected to Vietnam is the only way to succeed in the U.S. draws the reader in with the perpetual tension in her mind and heart, which Tran eventually evolves into the understanding that “[her father] was trying to save [their] lives” rather than ruin them. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/20/a-review-of-house-of-sticks-by-ly-tran/
A review of The Tramp in British Literature, 1850-1950, by Luke Lewin Davies
Having published a book on fifteen (American, British and Irish) tramp writers, although devoting an entire chapter to each, after reading Davies’ book I was left feeling that I had only scratched the surface of this fascinating and under researched phenomena (Davies identifies thirty-three British tramp memoirists alone). I will have to read this book more than once to fully appreciate its scope and content, including the countless delightful anecdotes from the subject’s of Davies curiosity. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/16/a-review-of-the-tramp-in-british-literature-1850-1950-by-luke-lewin-davies/
A review of Letters from the Periphery by Alex Skovron
Often the poems have a dream-like quality, the familiar taking on a surreal, Twin Peaks like inversion as it creates these strange portraits, as in “Apokryphon” – “A leering urchin passes, walking with a broom. Curtains/part, discreet.” Skovron’s detail is painterly—the drape of clothing, the angle of the head, light falling in such a way that there is almost a magical aspect to the characters. They are slightly outside of the scene, being watched while watching. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/12/a-review-of-letters-from-the-periphery-by-alex-skovron/
A review of Local By Anna Couani
Couani, in her entertaining narrative poetry, sees, reflects, describes, ponders and imagines. Vivid images, poignant lines, and a sense of balance moves the reader from place to place. The poet gives a voice to images. It impressed me how she is able to bring the personal into the poetry without sentimentality. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/12/a-review-of-local-by-anna-couani/
A review of If You’re Happy by Fiona Robertson
This short story collection by doctor/ writer Fiona Robertson, lures us into intimate scenarios where joy and its adversary– fear– are coterminous. From a lovelorn housewife caught in a literal storm and a lonely man in a housing estate, Robertson’s characters drip in pathos and multidimensionality within the tight confines of each story, leaving readers saying a reticent farewell, wondering after the characters, ambivalent about their predicaments. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/10/a-review-of-if-youre-happy-by-fiona-robertson/
Writing From a Very Dark Place: A Conversation with Katerina Canyon
Recently, I received a review copy of Surviving Home, by Katerina Canyon. I knew of Katerina from a weekly virtual poetry reading series that she runs, called “Canyon Poets.” She is a self-made poet, community activist, and poetry agitator. Surviving Home is a series of narrated poems describing surviving an abusive childhood, being raised in an abusive home, and sometimes being homeless. I found that I couldn’t review the book in good faith; although I felt compassion for her story, its overwhelming darkness felt too dense for me to penetrate. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/08/writing-from-a-very-dark-place-a-conversation-with-katerina-canyon/
A review of Bombay Hangovers by Rochelle Potkar
This meticulous nature of her research into each story marks her out from other writers. This is again evident in another beautiful story where a Parsi youth is obsessed with creating his own brand of perfume (Parfum). Rochelle goes into a heady mixture of the scents and perfumes employed. She even has a lab where the protagonist works to manufacture that one perfume that can be his own. Finally, instead of his wife, he finds solace in the arms of a maid whose function is merely to be like a springboard of scents. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/06/a-review-of-bombay-hangovers-by-rochelle-potkar/
A review of Woman by the Door by Kashiana Singh
Singh is a family-person in the world, besides all other things she may be. And for her the act of cooking is akin to praying, many-a-times the aroma of pungent onions, garlic over fingertips wafting out of time spans, losing gravity but never gravitas to become laced with familial inter-textualities. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/04/a-review-of-woman-by-the-door-by-kashiana-singh/
A Nontraditional Life: Navigating With(out) Instruments by traci kato-kiriyama
Time and again, kato-kiriyama pushes the reader to continue their hard work to understand and enact her “pan-generational consciousness.” The arts activism to build community in ICON 6; the call to treat all humans with utmost empathy, always, in ICON 9’s N.T.S.; kato-kiriyama speaking aloud her queer identity to “the curious Uncle or Auntie” who doesn’t quite understand and ICON 10’s N.T.S. reminder that “I am a little crazy./This is very normal,” living this nontraditional life to confront, take action, and heal through her Japanese American Angeleño identity. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/03/a-nontraditional-life-navigation-without-instruments-by-traci-kato-kiriyama/
A review of Something So Precious by James Lee
Something So Precious is a novella that explores at once the thrill of youth, suffocation of legacy, the secrets families keep and the elusive nature of desire. Some of the prose would not seem out of place in a novel by Anaïs Nin, as it delves deftly into the intricacies of love affairs with both realism, poetic lyricism and philosophical musing. I mention Nin in particular because she was a visionary in femme erotica and Lee’s prose, for a male writer, not unlike Pedro Almodóvar’s films, touched me for its understanding of femme desire. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/02/a-review-of-something-so-precious-by-james-lee/
A review of With by Kenning JP Garcia
Is this a truly Copernican exploratory adventure in poetry then, or just another academic Ptolemy-ization of contemporary verse? The former, who believed in Earth-centered astronomy, famously endeavored to complicate the data so as to account for the anomalies that were fast gathering around him making undeniable the proof that he was wrong…pointing out the proverbial elephant in the room so to speak, the emperor’s new clothes: nakedness. JP Garcia exercises something of the scientists’ precision talent with their diary here. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/03/01/a-review-of-with-by-kenning-jp-garcia/
All of the reviews and interviews listed above are available at The Compulsive Reader on the front page. Older reviews and interviews are kept indefinitely in our extensive (and growing) categorized archives (currently at 2,927 which can be browsed or searched from the front page of the site.
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LITERARY NEWS
In the literary news this month, American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850 by Alan Taylor (Norton) has won the New-York Historical Society’s $50,000 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History, honoring the “best book of the year in the field of American history or biography.”
The shortlist has been announced for the $35,000 Aspen Words Literary Prize, sponsored by the Aspen Words program of the Aspen Institute and honoring “a work of fiction that illuminates vital contemporary issues.” The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on April 21 in New York City. The 2022 shortlist includes The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan (HMH/HarperCollins), The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton (37 Ink/S&S), The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade (Norton), What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy (Tin House), What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad (Knopf).
The 58th annual PEN Literary Awards included Daisy Hernández, who was awarded the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease (Tin House), an exploration of how poverty, racism, and public policies have conspired to keep the tropical illness Chagas disease hidden in the U.S. Yoon Choi’s Skinship: Stories (Knopf) won the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, and Margaret Renkl’s Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South (Milkweed) took home the $15,000 Pen/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Torrey Peters’s Detransition, Baby: A Novel (One World) received the $10,000 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was honored with the $50,000 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. You can watch the ceremony and see all of the winners here: https://pen.org/literary-awards/the-2022-pen-america-literary-awards-winners/
The 2022 Stella Prize longlist was announced live this month in a special panel event with this year’s judging panel: Melissa Lucashenko (Chair), Declan Fry, Cate Kennedy, Sisonke Mismang, and Oliver Reeson. Together, they discussed the stories, themes and ideas captured in this year’s exceptional list. The 2022 Stella Prize longlist includes novels, short fiction, memoir, social history, a book-length essay, a graphic novel, and – eligible for the first time in 2022 – poetry collections. This year’s prize saw over 220 entries. The twelve titles selected are evidence of the extraordinary calibre of work being published by Australian women and non-binary writers, with a remarkable seven of the twelve books written by debut authors, and five of the twelve by First Nations authors. You can watch the session here: https://stella.org.au/2022/02/announcing-the-2022-stella-prize-longlist/
he New Literary Project released a shortlist of five finalists for the $50,000 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, which is presented “to a mid-career author of fiction who has earned an extraordinarily distinguished reputation and garnered the widespread appreciation of readers.” The winner, to be named in April, will be in brief residence at the University of California, Berkeley, and in the Bay Area in October 2022. The five finalists and their most recent publications are: Christopher Beha, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts (Tin House), Percival Everett, The Trees (Graywolf Press), Lauren Groff, Matrix (Riverhead Books), Katie Kitamura, Intimacies (Riverhead Books), and Jason Mott, Hell of a Book (Dutton)
Finalists have been unveiled for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The winner, who will receive $15,000, will be announced in early April. The remaining four finalists each receive an honorarium of $5,000. All five authors will be honored May 2 at the virtual 42nd Anniversary PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration. This year’s finalists are: Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed (Counterpoint), The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine (Grove Atlantic), The President and the Frog by Carolina de Robertis (Knopf), Dear Miss Metropolitan by Carolyn Ferrell (Holt), and How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue (Random House).
The winners of the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize have been announced. The winner was Stuart Barnes for Sestina after B. Carlisle. Runner-ups were Andrew Sutherland for Antarctica and John Foulcher for The Girls Become. Highly Commendeds were Kay Are for Nights and Works and Roland Leach for Approaching Zero. To read what judge Kate Middleton has to say about the prize-winning poems, visit: https://islandmag.com/literary-arts-news/gwen-harwood-winners-202122
The Audio Publishers Association (APA) announced winners of the 2022 Audie Awards, which recognise distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. The Audies were hosted by actor, author, and former associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Kal Penn, who stepped into the recording booth himself for nine days last fall to narrate the audiobook adaptation of his memoir You Can’t Be Serious (Simon & Schuster). The night’s biggest honour, Audiobook of the Year, went to sci-fi title Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, narrated by Ray Porter and published by Audible Studios. The winner in the Young Adult category was Be Dazzled by Ryan La Sala, narrated by Pete Cross and published by Dreamscape Media. A full list of winners can be found here: https://www.audiopub.org/winners/2022-audies
Longlists have been revealed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. There are five British authors, six Americans, two New Zealanders, one Turkish-British, one American-Canadian, and one Trinidadian writer on the longlist. Alongside four debut novelists, five authors have been previously longlisted.Chair of judges and author Mary Ann Sieghart, said: ‘Choosing just 16 novels from 175 submissions was a marathon task. After a lively and passionate discussion, my fellow judges were delighted to find that our 16 favourite novels were incredibly diverse, written by women of all ages from all over the world, covering different genres, and from publishers large and small. We are confident that this wonderful, eclectic and inspiring longlist will offer something to entrance every reader, both male and female.’ Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith, Careless by Kirsty Capes, Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé, Flamingo by Rachel Elliott, Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey, Salt Lick by Lulu Allison, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini, The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton, The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak, The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, and This One Sky Day by Leone Ross. The judging panel will now whittle these sixteen books down to a shortlist of just six novels, announced on April 27th. The winner of the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced on Wednesday 15th June.
Raven Leilani’s novel, Luster, has won the 2021 L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize. The prize of $25,000 is one of the largest literary awards in the U.S. Established at Texas State University in 2016 and administered by the Department of English, the prize is designed to recognize an exceptional, recently-published book-length work of fiction. Leilani and her work will be celebrated at an event at Texas State on April 8.
13-novel longlist has been revealed for the 2022 International Booker Prize, which recognizes a single book that is translated into English and published in the U.K. or Ireland. The contribution of author and translator is given equal recognition, with the £50,000 prize split evenly between them. In addition, for the first time in 2022, the shortlisted authors and translators will each receive £2,500, increased from £1,000 in previous years. The International Booker Prize shortlist will be announced April 7, and a winner named May 26. The full longest can be seen here: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/international/2022
Winners of the André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards, which were announced recently at a virtual zoom ceremony, are: Food: Baking with Fortitude by Dee Rettali, Drink: Inside Burgundy by Jasper Morris, Special Commendation: Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino , and John Avery Award: The South America Wine Guide by Amanda Barnes.
Winners of the 2021 National Book Critics Circle awards have been announced. The ceremony was a virtual affair once again this year. The event honouring the best books published in 2021 included readings by the finalists in each of seven categories, followed by the actual awards ceremony. The winners were: Autobiography: Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin (Little, Brown). Biography: All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner (Little, Brown). Criticism: Girlhood by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury). Fiction: The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper). Nonfiction: How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith (Little, Brown), and Poetry: frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss (Graywolf).
Australian independent booksellers announced Love Stories by Trent Dalton (Fourth Estate Australia) as their favourite book from last year, and the winner of The Indie Book Awards 2022 Book of the Year. The individual category winners in Fiction, Debut Fiction, Non-Fiction, Illustrated Non-Fiction, Children’s and Young Adult were also announced. From these six category winners, the independent booksellers selected the best of the best – The 2022 Indie Book of the Year. Full details of the category winners can be found here: https://www.indiebookawards.com.au/post/winners-announced-indie-book-awards-2022
Swedish picture book author and illustrator Eva Lindström was selected from among 282 nominees from 71 countries as this year’s recipient of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s largest children’s book award, containing a purse of five million Swedish krona. The award, founded by the Swedish government in 2002, and now in its 20th year, is administered by Sweden’s Arts Council. Lindström, 70, is the author and illustrator of five picture books, beginning with The Cat Hat, published in 1989. She has also illustrated books written by other authors and produced several animated short films.
The Publishing Triangle has announced the finalists for the 34th annual Triangle Awards, which honor the best LGBTQ fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and trans literature published in 2021. Winners will be announced virtually May 11. See the finalists for the seven awards here: https://publishingtriangle.org/2022/03/finalists-2022-publishing-triangle-awards/
Colm Tóibín won the £30,000 (about $39,110) Rathbones Folio Prize, which honors “works of literature in which the subjects being explored achieve their most perfect and thrilling expression,” for his novel The Magician. After reading 80 books for this prize, judge Rachel Long said that The Magician made her “fall in love with reading all over again.” (I will say, just imo that if you are not in love with reading already, you should probably not be a literary judge].
A shortlist has been released for the €100,000 Dublin Literary Award, sponsored by Dublin City Council to honour a single work of fiction published in English. The finalists are nominated by librarians worldwide. The winner will be named May 19, as part of the opening day program of International Literature Festival Dublin. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey (New Zealander), At Night All Blood is Black by, David Diop (French), translated from the French by Anna Moschovakis, The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi (Nigerian), The Art of Falling by Danielle McLaughlin (Irish), Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg), and The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter (French), translated from the French by Frank Wynne
The shortlist has been announced for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Each of the six shortlisted authors will receive $10,000, and the winner, who be announced on May 22, will receive an additional $50,000. The shortlisted titles are: Cairo Maquette by Tarek Imam (Egypt), Rose’s Diary by Reem al-Kamali (UAE), Dilshad by Bushra Khalfan (Oman), The Prisoner of the Portuguese by Mohsine Loukili (Morocco), The White Line of Night by Khaled Nasrallah (Kuwait), and Bread on the Table of Uncle Milad by Mohamed Alnaas (Libya).
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess has selected Kweku Abimbola’s manuscript Saltwater Demands a Psalm as the recipient of the 2022 Academy of American Poets First Book Award. Abimbola’s manuscript will be published by Graywolf Press in April 2023. In addition to publication, Abimbola will receive a six-week all-expenses-paid residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy, as well as $5,000. The Academy of American Poets will also purchase and distribute copies of the book to its members.
The shortlist for the 2022 Stella Prize includes: TAKE CARE by Eunice Andrada (@giramondopublishing), Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen (@uqpbooks), No Document by Anwen Crawford (@giramondopublishing), Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down (@text_publishing), Stone Fruit by Lee Lai (@fantagraphics), and Homecoming by Elfie Shiosaki (@magabalabooks)
Finally, the eight winners of the Windham-Campbell Prizes, administered by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library and honoring “literary achievement across fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, at every stage of their careers,” have been announced. Each recipient is given a grant of $165,000. This year’s winners: Fiction: Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe), and Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (Zimbabwe). Nonfiction: Margo Jefferson (U.S.), Emmanuel Iduma (Nigeria). Drama: Winsome Pinnock (U.K.), Sharon Bridgforth (U.S.), and Poetry: Wong May (Ireland/Singapore/China) and Zaffar Kunial (U.K.).
Have a great month!
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COMPETITION NEWS
Congratulations to Debra Guyette and Hilary Brown, who each won a copy of The Daddy Chronicles by Jayne Martin.
Congratulations to Andrew Ingold who won a copy of From Your Hostess At The T&A Museum by Kathleen Balma to:
Congratulations to Kathleen Gardiner, Maureen Julian, and Helen Lane, who each each won a copy of songs we used to dance to by Courtney Marie.
Our new site giveaway is for a copy of Pesticide by Kim Hayes. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Pesticide” and your postal address in the body of the email.
We also have a copy of Greetings from Asbury Park by Daniel H Turtel. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Asbury Park” and your postal address in the body of the email.
Finally, we have a copy of A Stream to Follow by Jess Wright. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “A Stream to Follow” and your postal address in the body of the email.
Good luck, everyone!
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COMING SOON
We will shortly be featuring a review of American Daguerreotypes by James Penha, Scale Model of a Country at Dawn by John Sibley Williams, Masquerade by Carolyne Wright, Listen Mama by M.S.P. Williams, The Blue Butterfly by Leslie Johansen Nack, and lots more reviews and interviews.
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Drop by The Compulsive Reader talks (see the widget on right-hand side of the site) to listen to our latest episode which features Nick Courtright in conversation with Kristina Marie Darling about his new book The Proofs, the Figures: Walt Whitman and the Meaning of Poems You can also listen directly here: https://anchor.fm/compulsivereader/episodes/Nick-Courtright-on-The-Proofs–the-Figures-Walt-Whitman-and-the-Meaning-of-Poems-e1fv5qg
Also we now have a video of my interview last month with Cold Enough for Snow’s Jessica Au – check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QduLBsiqL-U
Subscribe to the show via iTunes and get updates automatically, straight to your favourite listening device. Find us under podcasts by searching for Compulsive Reader Talks. Then just click subscribe.
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(c) 2022 Magdalena Ball. Nothing in this newsletter may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher, however, reprint rights are readily available. Please feel free to forward this newsletter in its entirety.
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