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Female Poets

Tracy K. Smith's Poetry Collection Included on Harvard Crimson Must-Read List

April 11, 2024

The Harvard Crimson recently featured a list of works from eight must-read female poets, including Tracy K. Smith's "Life on Mars." A description of the poetry collection is included below:

"A former U.S. poet laureate and current professor at Harvard University, Tracy K. Smith is known for her high-minded and cerebral poetry that juxtaposes existential musings with the mundane actions of everyday life. The larger cosmos is never far from her work, nor are surprising and subtle elements of science fiction. In her must-read poem, “Universe as Primal Scream,” Smith...

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The Secret Seekers

New Book Release: The Secret Seekers by Vanessa Braganza

April 11, 2024
English PhD student Vanessa Braganza's The Secret Seekers will be released in summer 2025. The deal report from Publishers Marketplace is included below: 

"Harvard PhD candidate and literary detective Vanessa Braganza's THE SECRET SEEKERS, a real-life Da Vinci Code that follows one historical detective's journey to unlock the secret world of Renaissance ciphers and the women who used them to survive, to Elizabeth Michell at Harpoer One, by Mollie Glick at CAA." 
Neel Mukherjee "Choice"

Neel Mukherjee’s “Choice” Reviewed in The New York Times

April 4, 2024

Neel Mukherjee’s "Choice" is a novel full of characters deciding how much truth to tell. As in "The Lives of Others," the author’s 2014 Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, we are confronted with subtle, powerful narratives within narratives exploring the gap between wealth and poverty, myopia and activism, fact and fiction. But here these themes deepen into an exploration of free will. A line from V.S. Naipaul’s "In a Free State" comes to mind: “The only lies for...

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The New Yorker Cover April 2024

"Death," a poem by Jorie Graham

April 4, 2024

"Death" by Jorie Graham was featured in the April 8th issue of The New Yorker. An excerpt is included below.

flashed her brights at me.
She was driving straight into the sun.
Her dark glasses flared
as she went by.

Midday wintering light
oiled gently up every tree,
half-brightening, half-
darkening,

stones here and there in walls
picked out & pointed to
by the adamant
winter sun,

and the branches in the air, and the branches draped across the roads
as shadows
were siblings of a kind
I didn’t want to...

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Henry Louis Gates Times

Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Why Fear Is Driving the Current Era of Racial Backlash

April 4, 2024

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is one of the most influential scholars of Black history and literature in the United States. He’s the director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, author of more than 20 books and creator of more than 20 documentaries, host of the groundbreaking genealogy series Finding your Roots, and, as it turns out, my former professor.

But he’s also, really, America’s professor. And his work is foundational to how Americans understand race as part of our shared national story.

Read...

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Hive and Honey

Paul Yoon's The Hive and the Honey Wins The Story Prize

March 28, 2024

"As announced at a private event that was broadcast live, the winner of The Story Prize for books published in 2023 is Paul Yoon for The Hive and the Honey (Marysue Rucci Books). The other finalists were Yiyun Li for Wednesday’s Child (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Bennett Sims for Other Minds and Other Stories (Two Dollar Radio). The Story Prize’s $20,000 top prize is among the largest first-prize amounts of any annual U.S. book award for fiction. As runners-up, Li and Sims each received $5,000. The evening began with the...

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Teju Cole Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

Teju Cole's Tremor Wins Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

March 28, 2024

Teju Cole's Tremor was one of the winners of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the only book prize in the United States that recognizes books that focus on racism and diversity. 

A description of the novel is included below: 

"'Tremor,' a sinuous meditation on art and life, at once elegant and steely, tells the story of Tunde, an academic and artist – his specialty is photography – who hails from Nigeria, but now teaches in the US. Tunde’s is a contemplative, seemingly comfortable existence, but one haunted by unease –...

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SKB

Sol Kim-Bentley Awarded Dean's Distinction

March 28, 2024
On March 26, Dean Hoekstra announced that Sol Kim-Bentley, Interim Assistant Department Administrator and Financial Associate for the English Department, was one of the recipients of the 2024 Dean's Distinction. Congratulations, Sol!

Included below is information from Dean Hoekstra about the award:

"From organizing events that promoted a sense of community within their departments, the FAS and beyond, to tackling unexpected challenges and creating new solutions for groundbreaking research, the 2024 recipients have truly embodied the guiding principles of Dean’s... Read more about Sol Kim-Bentley Awarded Dean's Distinction
Austin Taylor

Austin Taylor Sells First Novel to Celadon

March 28, 2024

Austin Taylor, a graduate of the class of 2021 and a joint concentrator with Chemistry who wrote a summa thesis, recently sold her first novel, Notes on Infinity, to Celadon. Below is an excerpt from Paper Literary: 

"We are delighted to announce deals for Austin Taylor’s debut novel Notes on Infinity in the US and UK. Katie Greenstreet sold North American rights to Deb Futter at Celadon in a seven-figure deal, at auction. UK rights were sold to Lily Cooper at Penguin Michael Joseph in a six-figure deal, at auction. German rights...

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LC Careers Symposium

Literary Careers Spring Symposium

March 28, 2024

The Literary Careers Spring Symposium set the Barker Center Lounge buzzing with energy and conversation this past Tuesday afternoon. A group of over 50 alumni, students, and authors gathered to discuss professional development, share their work, and enjoy coffee, tea, and pie. Students made new connections and deepened mentorship relationships with alumni and graduate student mentors whom they'd met through LC's previous events. The LC team was also thrilled to host participants from the Dartmouth English Department and Center for Professional Development...

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