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This Week’s News

A Small Silence by Jumoke Verissimo (Cassava Republic Press) and Jane Clarke’s When the Tree Falls (Bloodaxe Books) were longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize.

Connor Wilumsen’s Bradley of Him (Koyama Press) and Chris Kuzma’s Lunch Quest were nominated for Doug Wright Awards.

A number of Consortium Titles were named Best Children’s Books of the Year by Bank Street College Education, including Comics: Easy as ABC! by Ivan Brunetti (Toon Graphics/Toon Books), Ants Don’t Wear Pants! by Kevin McCloskey (Toon Books), Ariba by Masha Manapov (Enchanted Lion Books), Layla’s Happiness by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin (Enchanted Lion Books), Noodlephant by Jacob Kramer, illustrated by K-Fai Steele (Enchanted Lion Books), Up Down Inside Out by JooHee Yoon (Enchanted Lion Books), Troublemaker for Justice by Jacqueline Houtman, Walter Naegle, Michael G. Long (City Light Publishers), The Little Black Fish by Samad Behrangi, illustrated by Farshid Mesghali, translated by Azita Rassi (Tiny Owl Publishing), When I Colored in the World by Ahmadreza Ahmadi, illustrated by Ehsan Abdollahi, translated by Azita Rassi (Tiny Owl Publishing), Grobblechops by Elizabeth Laird, illustrated by Jenny Lucander (Tiny Owl Publishing), and Thukpa for All by Praba Ram and Sheela Preuitt, illustrated by Shilpa Ranade (Karadi Tales).

The Millions’ Longlist for the Best Translated Book Award included Welcome to America by Linda Boström Knausgård, translated by Martin Aitken (World Editions), Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz, translated Sara Moses and Carolina Orloff (Charco Press), Tentacle by Rita Indiana, translated by Achy Obejas (And Other Stories), 77 by Guillermo Saccomanno, translated by Andrea G. Labinger (Open Letter Books), Time by Etel Adnan, translated by Sarah Riggs (Nightboat Books), Aviva-No by Shimon Adaf, translated by Yael Segalovitz (Alice James Books), and Next Loves by Stéphane Bouquet, translated by Lindsay Turner (Nightboat Books).

A poem from Come the Slumberless To the Land of Nod by Traci Brimhall (Copper Canyon Press) was published in Literary Hub on April 2.

Modern Poetry in Translation featured two poems from Sawako Nakaysu’s Some Girls Walk into the Country They Are From (Wave Books).

“Illegible Cloud” from Chad Bennett’s Your New Feeling is the Artifact of a Bygone Era (Sarabande Books) was the Poem of the Day on Poetry Daily on April 2.

Rupert Sheldrake, author of Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work (Monkfish Book Publishing), was interviewed on Resistance Radio on Sunday, April 5.

Spiritual Rebel author Sarah Bowen (Monkfish Book Publishing) was interviewed on Big Universe on March 31.

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This Week’s Reviews

White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia
Kiki Petrosino | Sarabande Books | 9781946448545 | May 2020

“The result of deep historical research, impressive formal dexterity, and savvy storytelling, this volume of poetry combines genealogy, history, and verse in a way that reflects many American experiences.”—Foreword Reviews

Toxicon and Arachne
Joyelle McSweeney | Nightboat Books | 9781643620183 | April 2020
“Arachne subverts and elaborates upon Toxicon. Toxicon sharpens the cuts of Arachne. With these two texts—this book, Toxicon and Arachne—Joyelle McSweeney has created a work of incredible honesty, exploring suffering and trauma through the lens of the necropastoral. This landscape of moss and bugs and dilapidation.”—Empty Mirror

SLINGSHOT
Cyrée Jarelle Johnson | NIghtboat Books | 9781643620091 | September 2019
“A beautifully complex poetry collection, Johnson is defiantly sharp and humorous, with lines clearly from a technician. Themes include Black lives and organizing, disability, queerness, sex work, and societal devastation and care to name a few. If you want a book that flips formalism and confounds, Slingshot is a stunning addition to your self-isolation reading life.”—them

Above Us the Milky Way
Fowzia Karmi | Deep Vellum Publishing | 9781646050024 | April 2020
“It is Fowzia Karimi the artist we shall remember after reading the book as much as Fowzia Karimi and her family, the exiles and victims of war. This is a wonderful book.”—The Modern Novel

Girls Lost
Jessica Schiefauer, trans. Saskia Vogel | Deep Vellum Publishing | 9781941920954 | March 2020
“A dark exploration of magic and gender.”—Community of Literary Magazines and Presses

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This Week’s News

The new and improved Consortium website is now live!

People Magazine recommended Joan Frank’s Where You’re All Going (Sarabande Books) as a new title to read this month.

Val Walker, author of 400 Friends and No One To Callchatted with Parade Magazine about how to stay social in the age of social distancing on March 21. Walker was also interviewed for an article on AARP.org on March 23.

The Rumpus put together a list of titles to read in honor of Women’s History Month on March 13, including two future Rumpus Book Club ReadsArrow by Sumita Chakraborty (Alice James Books) and Inconvenient Daughter by Lauren J. Sharkey (Akashic Books/Kaylie Jones Books. The full list includes Letters to a Young Brown GirlMuddy MatterhornA Nail the Evening Hangs OnObitand White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia.

Margo Jefferson recommended Tyehimba Jess’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Olio (Wave Books) in the New York Times on March 19. The Times Book Review also recommended A Long Way Off by Pascal Garnier (Gallic Books) on March 20.

Julia Cho (The Language Archive, Theater Communications Group), Aleshea Harris, (Is God Is / What to Send Up When It Goes Down, Theatre Communications Group), and Maria Tumarkin (AxiomaticTransit Books) were announced as recipients of Windham-Campbell Prizes.

Mark Bibbins’s 13th Balloon (Copper Canyon Press) was recommended in PEN America on March 20. Bibbins was also interviewed in Guernica on March 20.

A poem from Maya C. Popa’s American Faith (Sarabande Books) was published in the Poetry Society of America with a note from the author.

Collen Dunn Bates, publisher of Prospect Park Books, was interviewed in Publishers Weekly on March 24.

Juli Lopera Delgado, author of Fiebre Tropical (The Feminist Press at CUNY), was interviewed by 48 Hills on March 11.

The Texas Observer wrote about Deep Vellum Press on March 23, praising their “impressive series” of books in translation.

A profile of the Feminist Press at CUNY appeared in Forbes Magazine on March 20.

King Shaka: Zulu Legend by Luke W. Molver (Catalyst Books) won an Excellence in Graphic Literature Award.

A number of Consortium titles won awards from Foreword Reviews, including Hobgoblin and the Seven Stinkers of Rancidia by Kyle Sullivan, illus. Derek Sullivan (Hazy Dell Press); Immigration Reform: The Corpse That Will Not Die by Charles Kamasaki (Mandel Vilar Press); Thorn by Anna Burke (Bywater Books); and This is My Body by Cameron Dezen Hammon (Lookout Books)

The Publishers Weekly podcast talked about Apsara Engine by Bishakh Som (The Feminist Press at CUNY) on March 20.

Deer Trails: San Francisco Poet Laureate Series No. 7 by Kim Shuck (City Lights Publishing) won the NCIBA Golden Poppy Award for Poetry.

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This Week’s Reviews

We Had No Rules
Corinne Manning | Arsenal Pulp Press | 9781551527994 | May 2020
“Wistful, funny, angry, bitter, raw—Manning both shocks and enthralls.”—Booklist, starred review

Temporary
Hilary Leichter | Coffee House Press | 9781566895668 | March 2020 
“The near-farcical chaos of the gig economy is explored in this story of a young woman’s journey through a series of increasingly wild job placements, from shining shoes to swabbing the deck of a pirate ship.”—Vogue

I Love Myself When I Am Laughing… And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive
Zora Neale Hurston, edit. Alice Walker | The Feminist Press at CUNY | 9781936932733 | January 2020

“Hurston was the ultimate independent woman and one of the greatest writers who ever touched a pen. This collection was the first Hurston reader, edited by Walker and published in the 1970s . . . . While much of her work is very much about community, it, like her, in many ways stands alone.”—Seattle Times 

Growing Up Below Sea Level: A Kibbutz Childhood
Rachel Biale | Mandel Vilar Press | 9781942134633 | April 2020
“Rachel Biale’s fresh and vivid stories of her kibbutz childhood, raised in the biblical landscape of the Jordan River by European-born parents and community who had barely fled the Nazis, are pulsating with love and unblinking insight into the early kibbutz life. I read these stories with amazement and deep personal recognition. Literature is still the best path to grasping the heart Israel, and these stories touch on a pivotal moment in the young country’s history, geography, and social dreams.”—San Diego Jewish Review

Wage Slaves
Daria Bogdanska, trans. Hanna Strömberg | Conundrum International | 9781772620368 | May 2019
“In Wage Slaves, Bogdanska captures how distressing it can be to search for a new job, especially in a new country. This is definitely an important read if either of these have ever been applicable to you, but also imperative for those who have no relation to them; as a reminder of this privilege, and a step inside how bad things can be for others.”—Broken Frontier

Bigfoot Baby
Elias Barks, illus. Meg Hunt | Hazy Dell Press | 9781948931083 | April 2020
“From the Hazy Dell Flap Book series of innovative lift-the-flap adventures comes a new monster to explore with: a pintsized sasquatch. Durable, chunky pages and insets guarantee endless no-tear fun for small hands and inquisitive minds. Look around the forest for Bigfoot Baby, running wild through the trees, playing with bears, or reading in a camper’s tent, adorably furry and with one pointy tooth. Fairies, mushroom houses, and cheerful rhymes complete the multisensory experience.”—Foreword Reviews

The Joy of Movement
Mary Lynn Hafner | Redleaf Press | 9781605546421 | January 2019
“A practical manual filled with ready-to-use lesson plans that are both developmentally designed and respectful of the maxim that learning is fun. . . This gem of a book is surely useful in a preschool classroom. It may also be just the tool for energizing and motivating teachers who are ready to discover the joy of movement for themselves.”—Texas Child Care Monthly

Building Structures with Young Children
Ingrid Chalufour and Karen Worth | Redleaf Press | 9781929610501 | 2004
“Building Structures guides teachers with concrete and practical tips in the transition from open exploration of blocks—size, shape, and balance—to purposeful and focused explorations that produce an authentic understanding of how structures work. Most valuable, especially for teachers unfamiliar with the opportunities that block play offers, is a chapter devoted to getting ready—putting on a scientist mindset, building a teaching plan, and preparing the environment. . . This book has earned its place in your program’s library and regular attention in teacher development workshops.”—Texas Child Care Quarterly

Girls Lost
Jessica Schiefauer, trans. Saskia Vogel | Deep Vellum Publishing | 9781941920954 | March 202
“While its plot is relatively easy to summarize—three teenagers discover that a mysterious plant can change them from boys to girls—Jessica Schiefauer’s Girls Lost doesn’t avoid the complexities that could arise from such a scenario. The ways in which desire and identity converge within the pages of this book have the power to haunt, even as the narrative moves forward at a rapid pace. It’s a page-turner that lingers.”—Words Without Borders

Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River
Jung Young Moon, trans. Yewon Jung | Deep Vellum Publishing | 9781941920855 | December 2019
“Ridiculous in the best way.”—D Magazine

Temporary
Hilary Leichter | Coffee House Press | 9781566895668 | March 2020
“At a time when pop culture abounds with incisive takes on people’s relationship to their jobs — from Rob Hart’s dystopian The Warehouse to Bong Joon-ho’s acclaimed film Parasite—Leichter’s novel finds space for both intimacy and expansiveness. It’s like little else you’ll read, but its emotional resonance is all too familiar.”—Star Tribune

The Book of Anna
Carmen Boullosa, trans. Samantha Schnee | Coffee House Press | 9781566895774 | April 2020
“Threads characters from Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece into an innovative narrative caper that blends history, fiction, and fairytale. . . . The sheer innovation of Boullosa’s multi-layered narrative presents the reader with a nesting doll of fictions and histories—threads that intertwine questions of self-hood, artistic creation, and the many-layered voices of political change. The Book of Anna marks the rare achievement of a writer who balances the weight of Tolstoy’s complicated genius with her own interpretation of events, real and fictitious, with unmitigated brio and a touch of mischievous whimsy. It will surely become a modern classic.”—Paperback Paris

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This Week’s News

The “bold and energetic” debut novel by Juli Delgado Lopera, Fiebre Tropical, was an NYTBR Editor’s Choice on March 12. Reviewer Dwight Garner complimented the
“ebullient and assertive” prose in his review on March 2. Check out the excerpt shared by the Rumpus on February 17, and see what Lopera talked about in an interview with the NYTBR on March 18.

Several award shortlists were announced this week and we were pleased to see many Consortium publishers represented. Socialist Realism by Trisha Low and Soft Targets by Deborah Landau both won Believer Book Awards on March 16, and books from Coffee House Press and Alice James Books were finalists. Titles from Bellevue Literary Press and Deep Vellum Publishing were named finalists for the Big Other Translation Prize, and winners will be announced May 16. The finalists for the Publishing Triangle Awards were also announced, which included titles from Alice James Books, Arsenal Pulp Press, BOA Editions, and Nightboat Books. Stay tuned for the award ceremony April 30.

Hilary Leichter’s Temporary continues to snatch up press attention. Leichter was interviewed by the NYTBR on March 18. The Wall Street Journal had high praise for this “delirious and deeply humane satire” of the gig economy on March 13. Guernica also recommended the title on the 13, calling it “delirious” and “dizzying.” Literary Hub included it on their new books to read this month list on March 3. Publishers Weekly included it on a roundup of new titles, along with John Elizabeth Stintzi’s Vanishing Monumentson March 17Finally, Buzzfeed recommended the title, along with Karen Tei Yamashita’s Sansei and Sensibilityin a roundup of the best new releases on March 12. 

Mary Ruefle, author of Dunce (Wave Books) won the Arthur Rense Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Poupeh Missaghi, author of trans(re)lating house one (Coffee House Press), wrote an essay for Literary Hub on March 12.

The Association of Children’s Librarians of Northern California nominated Thukpa for All by Praba Ram and Sheela Preuitt, illustrated by Shilpa Ranade (Karadi Tales), for their Distinguished Children’s Books list. 

Cartoonist Keiler Roberts talked to the podcast I’ll Follow You about her latest book, Rat Time (Koyama Press) on March 15.

Ben Passmore, author of Sports Is Hell (Koyama Press), talked to Make It Then Tell Everyone on March 12.

Traci Brimhall, author of Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod (Copper Canyon Press) was interviewed by the Adroit Journal on March 17.

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